


La Vita Nuova

by This_is_it



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Plug, Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Bottom Hannibal, Bottom Will, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Dark Will, Dark Will Graham, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Healing, Kinda, Love Story, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Murder, Murder Husbands, On the Run, Oral Sex, Plot, Post Fall, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Slow Burn, There's Plot Too, Top Hannibal, Top Will, at some point, but not TOO dark, dante quoting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-14 02:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 49,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7995982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_is_it/pseuds/This_is_it
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A journey through the growing pains of a new life, and a new type of love.  From the forest floor, to rattrap motels, to penthouse suites, from Maine to Miami, from a blistering past to budding future, Will grapples with his long ignored instincts, which above all else, call out for Hannibal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

> “He woke her then, and trembling and obedient, she ate that burning heart out of his hand. Weeping, I saw him then depart from me. Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for her? Find nourishment in the very sight of her? I think so. But would she see through the bars of his plight, and ache for him?”
> 
>                  Dante Alighieri, La Vita Nuova, Chapter III, First Sonnet.

The long hours of desperate, half-lucid clawing through choppy waves laid heavy in his mind as if the water had crashed through his skin, his bones, washing him clean.  A baptism of desperate gasping for air, aching muscles and screaming wounds.  In those churning moments he hadn’t been sure if he had died, and if the nonsensical grasping in the dark was whatever came after death.  Whatever it was, it was pulling him from whoever he used to be, with Hannibal dragging at his side.

After eons struggling through that wretched limbo, following the stony curves of the bluff, their feet finally found purchase against uneven, slippery rocks leading to a forested edge, just low enough.  They had dragged each other up onto a root gnarled bank, where they crawled over branches and dead leaves, and then collapsed in the dirt. Wet lungs heaving for dry air, exhaustion took them before either were ready, with a grey morning whispering to life around them. Will was sure it would be his last moments alive.  He found comfort in the thought, and as he fell to sleep clutching Hannibal, he imagined they’d look like two lovers to whoever found their bodies.

To his enormous surprise, he woke the next afternoon. That first day he laid under dappled sunlight falling through a canopy of trees, struggling to stay conscious for more than a few seconds at a time.  Coherent thought evaded him, but whenever awareness would wander by, he basked in the newness of how he felt.  It was different, distant from the strong grasp of who he had known himself to be.  He thrummed with newness, despite the pulsing pain radiating from his open wounds. He felt as sturdy as the ground pressing against his back, as full and powerful as the great wilderness surrounding him.  And cleaner too, as if sacrificing himself, letting go of the world and his attachments had made him worthy of absolution.  In the delirium of that first day, sun flickering in his eyes and strength eluding him, he felt as if he’d been finally returned from the Inferno.  His pilgrimage through each layer of hell, which had begun with Garrett Jacob Hobbs and was guided by Hannibal Lecter, had finally come to an end.  He’d given in to the beast inside him, given in to fate’s intertwining himself with Hannibal, and had been spit back out, offered a new life. He now lay half dead in the garden, in paradise.  And he was not alone.

* * *

 

A light breeze rolled through Will’s curls, rustling the drying leaves around him, bringing with it a charred smell to drag him up to the surface of sleep.  It was silent around him as he woke, aside from the distant whistle of wind through trees, and the murmuring crackle of a fire.  He slid his eyes open, squinting at the morning light. He winced at the throbbing ache in his face and chest, which screamed as soon as he attempted to move. With great effort, he pulled himself up to lean on an elbow, and he blearily looked around him.  His eyes fell on the handful of branches burning in a ring of rocks, one of which had slabs of curling chunks of what Will could only guess was meat.

 Movement beyond the fire caught his attention, and his eyes flicked up to a few yard away, where Hannibal was disassembling what Will recognized as a deadfall trap. How the man was able to function at all after being flung off a cliff with a gunshot through his side, let alone manage to trap and kill some animal, was beyond Will.  He chalked it up to a life time of hunting people.

However, despite Hannibal’s mobility, he looked even worse than Will.  His face was sunken, eyes red and shallow, his skin so pale it neared blue.  Dirt and old blood clumped in his hair, and his hands shook as he chucked the pieces of wood in different directions.  He was shirtless, chest covered in sweat and dirt, glistening in the sunlight. Will looked down and noticed for the first time that Hannibal’s blood-stained sweater had been pooled under his head. He glanced back up and watched as Hannibal pulled himself up from the ground with strained effort, then limped toward him. 

“Good morning, Will.” Hannibal’s voice was rough, his accent thick.

Will nodded back, unable to find enough energy to speak.  He watched, thoughts slow and drowsy, as Hannibal moved around the fire to sit next to him.  The other man used a thin stick as a makeshift spatula, shuffling the clumps of meat around. They sat in silence as Hannibal cooked, insects calling around them, the ocean growling somewhere not too far.  Will almost believed he was dreaming, sitting on the forest floor, in peaceful and companionable stillness with Hannibal, as if they were on some kind of bizarre camping trip.

 When the small amount of food was cooked, Hannibal plated half on a flat piece of bark, accompanied by some random plants, and handed it to Will. Will wordlessly took it, and with hunger twisting knots in his stomach, he inhaled the chewy, smoky meat within seconds.

“It’s good to see you moving.” Hannibal spoke as he ate his own food, looking pleasingly at Will.

Will didn’t respond, working on chewing the thick meat.  He coughed around his last swallow, before grimacing.

“That was possibly the worst thing you’ve ever fed me.” His own voice sounded sore, throat rubbed raw from choking on salt water.

Hannibal’s thin lips spread into a grin. “Possibly?”

“You’ve served me people.  That’s probably worse.”

Hannibal held his pleasant look as he plucked another piece with his fingers, placing it into his mouth. “And yet this is the only meal I’m appalled to present you.”

Will thought about this for a second, scratching his forming beard.  “It was quite horrible,” he seceded, moving to lay back down.

“Don’t get too comfortable, Will,” Hannibal warned, placing his improvised plate down and turning to face Will.  “We need to cauterize your wounds; the sooner the better.  I did mine while you slept.  I would have done yours, but I wasn’t sure if your body could handle it. I wanted to wait until you’ve eaten something.” 

Pulsing heat had surrounded the deep gashes in Will’s face and chest since he gained consciousness.  With his head pillowed on Hannibal’s sweater, he closed his eyes and swallowed hard, wondering if he already had an infection.  Fear flooded his gut at the idea of holding hot embers against his torn flesh. He wondered why Hannibal would make the effort to sustain his life, after he himself had tried to take both of theirs.  He figured Hannibal had already formulated an eloquent revenge, and the forest floor wasn’t an adequate setting.  He wondered if he was willing to play along, or if he was too exhausted for their game of cat and mouse to continue.  It all seemed vaguely pointless to him now, now that he’d changed. Now that they’ve both changed.

“Whenever you are ready, we can get started.  I first have to make sure there’s nothing that needs digging out.”

Will’s face twisted, wondering what Hannibal would use to do such a thing, should he need to.  He prayed infection stayed away overnight, imagining Hannibal digging into his burning wounds with his fingers. He met Hannibal’s gaze with a stern stare, considering if maybe Hannibal was going to exact his revenge here and now. 

As if reading his thoughts, Hannibal sighed.

“We’ve been reborn, Will.”  He paused, letting the words take up the space between them. “Both of us baptized by sacrifice.  These new lives are sacred, and fate has obligated us to honor them. Will you honor them, Will?”

Will stared back, all too familiar with Hannibal’s loaded questions.  However this time his imploring query was met with only acceptance and agreement, all the old rage had melted away.  Left in the waters behind them. After what felt like a life time, Will finally responded with a swift, firm nod.  Between the intermingling of eye contact, the weighted exchange gave way to trust.  Something that was shattered long ago, returned to them hesitantly, with the shaky unbalance of a fawn.  

Hannibal slid closer to Will, returning to the matter at hand. He carefully unbutton the bloodstained shirt, pushing back the tattered fabric from the jagged knife lesion on Will’s chest.  The peal of the blood-glued fabric off the pulsing wound dragged a tense hiss from Will.  Hannibal leaned his face close, causing goosebumps to spring up over Will’s skin where his warm breath skimmed.

“It looks as good as we’re going to get,” Hannibal reassured, looking genuinely relieved. “Do you need something to bite?  A stick or some fabric?”

Will exhaled shakily, chills running up his spine. “A stick is fine.”

Hannibal found a sturdy piece of wood and brushed it off before carefully bringing it to Will’s mouth.  It stung Will’s face to open his jaw so wide to accept it, a deep pain radiating throughout his face.  His tongue pressed against the damp wood, mouth salivating around the earthy flavor as his teeth sank into it.

Hannibal turned away and retrieved a thick stick from the flame, its end glowing so brightly orange it looked white.  He turned back around, with a blank expression and his eyes dark.

“Don’t run from the pain, Will.  You will not be able to.  Let it wash over you; face it head on. And trust that I will not do you any harm.”

Will swallowed heavy then nodded, closing his eyes.  With surgical precision and near ceremonial reverence, Hannibal brought the white-hot tip to the wound.  He pressed it with gentle force repeatedly against the opening of the laceration, for only a couple seconds at a time. 

Waves of nauseating, blinding pain rushed from the point of contact all over Will’s body.  It tore down his arms, his legs, pounding over his skin.  Will’s teeth clenched down, molars sinking into splintering wood.  He heard a low, vibrating scream from a distance, and only after Hannibal pulled the log away did he realize it was coming from his own throat.  He choked for air, the slicing heat still hammering in his sizzling flesh.

“Ok. This one is done.  The burn looks clean.” Hannibal reassured him, moving to return the log to the fire.

 Will spat out the broken wood viciously, panting heavily and wiping the stray tears from eyes.

“Now for your face. I believe there is some bone damage in your jaw, but luckily our dragon friend missed anything vital. ” Hannibal told him.

Hannibal found another piece of bark and offered it to Will, who opened his mouth and accepted it without breaking eye contact, determination in his dark gaze. Hannibal stared back, absorbed in Will’s intensity.  He let his hand stay near Will’s face, his fingertips brushing cheekbone.  The moment lingered, the intricacies of torture and healing familiar to them, a bond being strengthened by Hannibal’s care and Will’s trust. Something deep and warm had been growing between them, blanketing them like dew over a breaking morning, refreshing and renewing.

Hannibal pulled his hand away and turned back to the flame, retrieving the stick.  He used his free hand to gently push Will’s face away, exposing the deep gash. Without hesitation, he moved the ember to Will’s face, carefully pressing it onto the broken skin.

This time the pain seemed to light up Will’s mind, speeding unbearable white flame across his face.  He ferociously dug his fingers into the dirt, rocks cutting under the nail. The scream that erupted from his chest was much closer this time, scraping up his throat and radiating through his head.

After only a few seconds, Hannibal removed the heat, and examined the burn.  When he was sure it was sufficient, he placed the log back into the flame before turning back to Will, who had remained limp on the ground, tears leaking from his closed eyes.  Hannibal gently smoothed his hand into Will’s hair, petting and soothing him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Planning on updating at least once a day with new chapters! Lots in store for our favorite murder husbands.


	2. Chapter 2

>  “I said to the sun, ‘tell me about the Big Bang.’
> 
> The sun said, ‘it hurts to become’”
> 
> Andrea Gibson _,_ "I Sing the Body Electric"

Will didn’t wake again until nightfall.  The woods surrounding him were fat with darkness, and every twitching branch called loudly in his ear, making it impossible to have any sort of restful sleep.  The pulsing aches in his barely healed wounds didn’t do much to help either.  His tired mind, driven to the brinks of humanity, wouldn’t settle.  With a restless exhaustion he rolled over, and cracking his eyes open he found Hannibal’s sweater lying on the ground close to him, but the other man gone.

He looked around, finding no one. He laboriously pulled himself up onto his elbow, fear already starting to leak into his belly when he found the area empty.  Their small fire gnawed silently on a log, and in the flickering glow Will uncertainly examined all the bristling shadows around him. He considered calling out, but didn’t want to draw attention from whatever could be in the darkness.

After a few hard beating minutes, right as Will was considering leaving in search, he heard light footsteps crunching over dead leaves.  Soon Hannibal’s form came into view, carrying a few dry logs. Cool relief flooded Will at the sight.

“I didn’t mean to wake you. I apologize,” Hannibal said softly as he approached. 

“I was in and out already,” Will responded with a sigh, laying back down. 

He felt the tension leaving his neck already as Hannibal placed a broken branch into the hungry flame.

“We’ll have to move tomorrow.  Jack no doubt heads a search for us right now.  Not too far west is a small town, we can find temporary sanctuary there.”

Will nodded, vacancy in his tired stare as he watched Hannibal set a couple other logs on the ground.  There were questions that drifted in the back of his mind; what was the plan, where would they go, were they even going together?  Attempted murder-suicide wasn’t usually met with such civility, such pragmatism.  He wondered what Hannibal planned, if he really meant to honor their new lives.  How he would honor it?  Will imaged Hannibal killing him, a flashing of images in his mind’s eye of each time it was attempted in the past. Part of him found disturbing peace with the idea.  He had given up on normal life already, given into Hannibal’s idea of beauty.  Chosen the golden darkness over everything else; over his job, his wife, his life.  As far as he was concerned, Hannibal was his only future. So if Hannibal decided to take his life, then maybe he was meant to offer it to him.  He’d just return to the ocean, to the drifting, to the peace of knowing he was with Hannibal, even if that was in death.

 Night wind brushed ice across his skin in the silence, releasing a trail of shivers up Will.

“Are you cold?” Hannibal asked, settling on the ground next to him.

Will watched him in the flickering light, his lean body silhouetted. He looked almost unearthly, even covered in dirt.  Will felt his chest tighten at the memory of standing at the cliff’s edge, drenched in blood, in Hannibal’s arms.  It had been equal parts enthralling and confusing. Hannibal was like a magnet, drawing him ever closer with each long stare, each tick of a smile, each eloquent expression. Forever pulling him in and in and in.  Now on the forest floor, in the dead of night, miles away from anyone, worlds away from his past, he wanted to reach out. To touch. He wanted to close the distance between them forever, whatever that meant.  He wanted to know Hannibal intimately, to express himself fully, and to drink up Hannibal’s full expression of himself.

The thought should have felt alarming, given his history of never once wanting another man like his before.  Not ever wanting anyone like this before. But he had no control over who his soul wrapped itself around, no say in their connection.  There was Hannibal, and there was himself.  And somewhere along the way, the line between the difference faded. 

He realized it was the first time he felt fully lucid with Hannibal since the fall, and the awareness of so much that needed to be said came swarming.  He stared at Hannibal’s tired, dirty skin, the darkening shadow around his jaw, his fresh wounds caked in earth.  He wanted to run shaking hands over the marble statue, explore and embrace everything suddenly laid before him.  All that Hannibal was, all that now existed between them, all that he was seeing in himself. He saw art where he used to only see darkness. Pure beauty, willfully manipulated and self-harvested.  It was a final symphony, a grand mural, and the most beautifully human thing Will had ever seen.

And yet part of him struggled to hold onto whatever made him hate Hannibal.  A sliver inside him was unable to forget what he’d done, who he’d killed. And that caused its own deep aching. He felt it unfair, that he was forever pulled towards someone who could kill a family at the drop of a hat, who’s murdered his friends, who’s manipulated and lied to him over and over.  He didn’t want to want, and as he spoke his next, inviting words, revulsion churned in his gut.

“I am.”

Hannibal hesitated for the ghost of a second, before leaning forward to drag his ruined shirt next to Will’s.  He soundlessly laid beside Will, sliding until their bodies touched. With something warm and frazzling growing in his chest, Will turned away from him on his side to offer his back.  Hannibal fitted his body flush against Will’s, one arm slithering around waist, palm spreading out over chest.

It felt possessive in a way that at once was both entirely welcomed and viciously rejected. This was the man that had manipulated his life so expertly, made himself an unwanted mirror to Will, and something in his heart clenched with disgust. And yet layered over the rejection was a dizzying intimacy, and against his will, Will’s heart pounded under Hannibal’s palm. Somehow it all felt inevitable, as if this connection had to be, whether he liked it or not. 

Hannibal could feel Will shaking under his tattered shirt and thin jeans.  He wasn’t sure if it was due to the cold night air, or something else entirely.  As with everything, he waited and observed what Will would do. He himself felt unstable to be so easily affected by Will’s body pressed against his own, finding it difficult to sort through his own racing thoughts, feeling Will’s heartbeat hammering as if it were in his hand. He inhaled deeply, smelling the sweat and dirt off Will’s skin, mingling with something new, something he’d never smelled on Will before.  It was raw, drumming with possibility, open and inviting. He found himself marveling, with the need to chase.

As their bodies settled, Will’s thoughts fell backwards, and dark guilt swarmed like rising water.  The budding clarity of who he now was, what he now wanted, clashed against the humming chaos from letting go of who he used to be. He didn’t die when he fell off the cliff in Hannibal’s arms, but the ill-fitting identity of Will Graham, FBI, did. Beyond that knowledge, identity in this new existence was murky.  He wasn’t ready to admit his morality was left behind in the water Hannibal dragged them out of.  He wasn’t ready to become a monster, a cold-blooded killer.  Denying whatever savagery paced inside him like the caged tiger clearly hadn’t worked out, but becoming Hannibal wasn’t right either.  But accepting him? Wanting him?  He didn’t want to think about what that made him, someone who wanted to touch and explore the body of a killer.

 “What are you thinking?” Hannibal asked softly, mouth dangerously close to his ear.

Will’s mind tumbled back to his conversation with Bedelia, when he’d first learned of Hannibal’s love for him. He’d had no idea what to do with that information, where to place it in the war. He recalled the Dante quote she’d offered as an explanation.  In his mind he could still hear the jealousy in her voice, and could still feel his morbid sense of victory and fear at her words. Back then he wasn’t ready to accept anything close to love from Hannibal.  Wasn’t ready to see it’s reciprocation in himself.   But now, as he laid with his skin warming against skin, he found the idea wildly alluring.  Uncaging inhabitation, releasing hatred and doubt. He inhaled deeply, feeling Hannibal’s hand rise with his chest, accepting for the first time with rushing blood that he did, indeed, ache for Hannibal.

Hannibal stayed quiet, knowing Will’s thoughts were spiraling somewhere far away.  He was patient, as Will’s imagination brought him back to the cliff side.  Covered in blood— his, Hannibal’s and the Red Dragon’s.  He heard Hannibal’s voice echoing over them.

_This is all I ever wanted for you, Will.  For both of us._

He felt Hannibal’s loneliness in the words, the call for someone to be able to know him, to see him. Will imaged night after night of isolation from the rest of the world.  Inability to form connection, both indifferent and resentful towards the throngs of the hubristic and hypocritical who tried to know him.  He imagined himself as the first person to ever offer the other man hope, the real spark of companionship.  He then thought of all the bodies, all the victims.  He pictured a wide, dead field under gray, stormy clouds, filled with the Ripper’s monuments of human artwork.  Miles of mangled bodies, faceless victims.  Standing above it all on an overlooking cliff side, surveying his work alone, was Hannibal.  Will felt sick at how deeply he wanted to stand next to him in the image, the desire to connect and to know achingly clear.

“I’m thinking,” Will paused, taking a shuttered breath. “That I can finally see through your bars of plight.”

Hannibal breathed slowly, but his hand pressed harder down against the middle of Will’s chest, pinning him close. He considered the quote, and the dusty sonnet it came from.

 “Do you plan, then, on eating my burning heart?” Hannibal asked him, forehead bent against the back of Will’s head, his voice only a touch deeper than before.

In response, Will pushed his shoulder back slowly, lowering Hannibal onto his back, simultaneously turning around, his body moving on its own volition.  His hand found its way to the center of Hannibal’s chest, fingers spreading out.  What he felt there told Will all he needed to know: the thrumming heartbeat under his palm eager and curious and slightly frantic, mirroring his own. He lowered his face slowly to where his hand was, replacing it with a gentle brushing of lips against bare skin, thoughts breaking like waves over Hannibal’s heart beating against his bottom lip.  He pulsed with the desire to keep pushing this, to continue drinking in the raw intimacy of something more powerful than either of them.  To drag them both off this cliff, to plunge.

 He shifted his weight slowly, trailing up, eyes closed, nerves electric in the newness of connection.  He pressed his face into Hannibal’s neck, ran his nose up stubbled jaw. Hannibal concentrated on maintaining even breathing, fluttering his eyes closed, alive with the impossibility of Will’s lips and breath so urgently close.  All for him. Given, not taken.

“Will,” Hannibal warned, voice broken, stopping the other man’s upward trail.

Will remained frozen. Hannibal exhaled slowly.

“You will not be able to take this back.” Finality and fear mingled in his voice.  

“I won’t want to,” Will breathed. 

Will’s pressing lips against his own burst over Hannibal like daybreak, bathing all his senses in newborn light.  It came slow and hesitant, and Hannibal’s mouth moved to meet him, cradling each softly burning pull of lip. A nearly inaudible sigh escaped him, warm fuzziness blanketing his brain, enwrapping him in a passion unknown to himself. Will’s gentle and insistent drags of lip ignited something primal, something ancient.  As Will’s body slid over him, Hannibal’s fingers clamped into the flesh of Will’s sides, his own skin catching on fire wherever Will’s hands roamed and grabbed.  Into his wild hair, a dragging grip down his neck.  Hesitant mouths opened against each other in resignation to wisps of tongue.

The kiss was slow, burning, gasping, and not at all sweet.  Will’s aching chest only clenched with grief, clutching to Hannibal, opening his mouth for his tongue, opening his heart for a brutal clarity, painful as a homecoming. The hungry gasps were not of relief, but of hollow memories of missing and longing.  It hurt to be so full of self-realization, to become.  Hannibal felt a dripping against his eyelids, sliding against his cheeks.  It came from Will, overwhelmed, frustrated, ashamed, unware that the splintering pain in his heart was the result of blistering love, his heart not accustomed to relishing such violent delights.

Rough lips sliding against his own, Will thought of his wife, of the love he had wanted.  The kind of love he could feel safe in.  He thought of Hannibal, taking that from him so easily.  Of Hannibal always taking from him, changing him.  _Save yourself, kill them all._ His grip on Hannibal’s shoulders grew fierce, digging, bruising and breaking skin.  His teeth grabbed at Hannibal’s lips, biting harshly where he could, tasting blood but refusing to stop.  Hannibal didn’t stop him either. _Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast, and one is striving to forsake its brother._ Will clenched his shut eyes, feeling like the burning tight tension in his own breast would split himself in half.  _Don’t you crave change, Will?_ He had, he did, he does. Crave, crave to forsake the love he had wanted, the love he could feel safe in.  Crave to destroy he who made him forsake himself.  To destroy the salvation he craved for from this beast.

A violent shutter broke through him, anger licking flames up his ribs, resignation trying to smother it. His shaking hands fisted, grabbing against Hannibal’s skin. Tears running streams over the earth caked to his face, he pulled away with the growl of a wounded animal.

“I hate you.” His voice was a wrecked whisper, shaking as much as his body.

Hannibal reached up, pulled Will to his chest, slotting his head under chin, petting gently against his hair. 

“I know,” Hannibal hushed.

Will tried to pull away from the grip, but Hannibal held him tightly, riding out each wrack of shuttering rage, each punch of shaking, clenched fist against his shoulder, meeting each desperately repeated ‘I hate you’ with whispered ‘I know’s and ‘shhh’s.

It passed, as storms always do, and was followed by a melting soberness, like prickling ocean water after crashing waves die down.  Will shakily leaned back up, hovering his face above Hannibal’s, staring down at the animal he caught once, the animal that had caught him so completely.  

Hannibal looked back up, similar pain mirroring in his sad eyes.  He was recognizing a home he’d sought after for so long in Will’s eyes, a home long closed off to him, and newly, miraculously, unthinkably opened.  A welcoming he’d only fantasied about for years, alone in his empty white cell.  He saw a future so brilliant, so desperately longed for, it burned him to his core.  He felt Dante’s words in him, recognizing his heart as burning; his soul ached for it to be devoured by Will. Hannibal looked up in awe, eyes dancing over each detail of Will’s face. His hands slid up his body to cradle his sharp jaw, thumb running over cheekbone, before pulling him back down, reconnecting their lips. 

 Will let his face be lowered, giving into whatever this was, pushed by an unstoppable wind at his back. This kiss was a slower sharing, careful pushing, pulsing pain and acceptance flowing between each opening and closing of lips. It was as if the moment were so fragile, they were both afraid of it shattering. 

But soon the anger and desperate hunger pushed back in, and Will was gripping the nape of Hannibal’s neck again, kissing deeply and hungrily, grinding his growing hardness down impatiently.  Not wanting to think anymore, to remember, to hate or to love. He just needed to follow instinct blindly, to surrender and to take. He felt Hannibal responding so eagerly to him, body moving to meet him, arms encircling, his hardness filling with each rub of heated arousal.  It felt horrifically like home.

Will lowered one hand from Hannibal’s neck to skim slowly down and across his chest.  His mind on fire, he ran the back of his fingers over Hannibal’s stomach, which tensed under the hot trail.  Blindly pushing forward, he continued to lower his hand, fingertips dipping under the pants’ waistline. Before he could find his mark, Hannibal quickly caught his wrist, breaking the kiss.

“As enticed as I am to see where you are heading,” he husked, “I think it’s best to conserve your energy.”  He managed to sound half put together, and Will took a few seconds to register what Hannibal meant, refocusing his thoughts.

“You’re concerned with my caloric expenditure?” Will asked incredulously, letting his lips ghost against Hannibal’s skin as he talked.

“I am.  Two days ago you were near dead.  You need to conserve everything you possibly can.” His voice only shook slightly.

Will’s wet sigh glided over Hannibal’s skin, but he relented, knowing Hannibal was right.  As much as he wanted to keep pushing, exhaustion hid thick in his bones.  He stole a few quick, soft kisses, unable to stop himself from exploring something so new, before settling back on his side, welcoming Hannibal to curl back around him with tingling skin.

They didn’t speak for a while after, Hannibal’s fingertips drawing lazy circles on Will’s chest. Will felt his demons shrinking away in his emotional exhaustion, sleep creeping closer.

Hannibal remained with his forehead dipped against the back of Will’s head, eyes closed and breathing in that all too familiar scent that radiated off Will’s skin.  His mind was too awake with all the new possibilities, several trains of thought shooting off in different directions, hunting down each possible outcome.

 First and foremost, he tried not to be so easily manipulated by the idea of Will’s hungry attempt to keep pushing.  Hannibal had been telling only a half truth when he cut things short.  Will wasn’t ready, physically or emotionally, for that, but Hannibal surprised himself by how unready he himself was for Will’s sudden turn of affection.  How emotionally exciting he found it all, how frighteningly intoxicating.  He had to school himself quickly, reminding himself of Will’s attempt to take his life, of Will’s battling selves, his instability.  His mind wandered back to their bluff-side embrace, the power alive between them, years of wanting accumulated to such sincerity. He replayed the moment over and over, how his expanding heart was caught so wildly off guard when Will attempted to drag them to their deaths.  Will had been resigning himself to Hannibal completely, and Hannibal to death.  And now Hannibal was having a hard time resolving the two, and how that moment somehow solidified their connection, their trust.

On the edge of sleep, Will could hear the cogs turning out of control in Hannibal’s head.  The last thing Will heard before unconsciousness took him, was a crumbled whisper in a foreign language.

“Come quei che con lena affannata, uscito fuor del pelago a la riva, si volge a l'acqua perigliosa e guata.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation:  
> “As he, who, with stressed breathing, forth issued from the sea upon the shore, turns to the dangerous water and gazes."  
> Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, Canto 1, line 22


	3. Chapter 3

 

> "Go on, take the money and run" 
> 
>        Steve Miller Band
> 
>  

The daylong trek to the town stretched on for brutal, chilling hours. Hiking through rough coastal terrain proved only harder with newly healing wounds, maddening thirst, and chafing, ragged clothing. They had to stop every mile or so to sit, catch their breath, dizzy with dehydration, before hauling back at it.  They traveled on the hope that Jack assumed they both had drowned, and would be looking for their bodies in the water.  It would take a few days for him and his men to move their search inland, and a few more after that to consider the small town.  However, it was inevitable for them to widen their hunt, so time wasn’t exactly on Hannibal and Will’s side.

As they hiked with labored breathing, neither spoke beyond requests for a rest.  It was a weary calm, an equal giving and sharing, as if an understanding had come without words.  Will tried to kill them, Hannibal somehow managed to save them. Through that bizarre ritual which ended with their heated embrace on forest floor, they were born into new people, ones that existed only to exist together. They shared no more brushes of lips or charged touching, but in the long hours of uneven hiking, each of their minds moved identically back to the night prior, to the burning, the holding back, the anger and acceptance. However, the business of getting to shelter, to safety, to real food and water, was pressing enough to push other conversation for later.  

Late afternoon, they had reached a winding road, which they followed towards the edge of town.  When the rare car would pass, they’d duck out of sight, praying it wasn’t one of Jack’s men.  The town they eventually arrived at wasn’t much more than a cluster of small houses and shops along one road, but it was enough to offer respite for the night.  Their only drawbacks existed in having no access to money, no nourishments, and looking like two psychopaths who had just stumbled out of a blood bath in the woods (which really wasn’t too far off, Will thought with a hitch of irony).

When Hannibal led them to crouch in the bushes near a vacant bus stop, across the road from a rundown gas station, Will was grateful for the opportunity to sit and rub a dirt-smeared hand over his sweaty brow.

“What’s the plan?” Will asked, once squatting behind some greenery, exhaustion seeping into his voice.

After securing Will was safely out of sight, Hannibal began to stand.

“Wait for my signal,” was all he said, before turning away.              

Will quickly grabbed Hannibal’s arm and pulled him back around. 

After scrutinizing Will’s imploring stare, Hannibal nodded. “No killing.”

It both warning for Will, and promise to him.  Their new relationship’s parameters hadn’t yet been defined, and the subject of killing seemed too new to know exactly how to navigate around it.

Satisfied, Will released his arm. Hannibal crossed the street quickly, and crouched under the shop’s window, peaking through the wide glass at the teenage cashier. It would have looked comical to Will, like something straight out of a cheesy spy movie, if the situation weren’t so dire. If the cashier saw Hannibal’s face, he would be able to identify them to any law enforcement when they would eventually show up.  Will wasn’t sure if he was concerned for the kid or for themselves, but all he knew was that if the cashier turned around, Hannibal would probably kill him.

After a few hard beating minutes, the kid shuffled from behind the counter and disappeared behind a door on the farthest wall. Hannibal took this moment to slide the door open, making sure to reach up and silence the welcoming bells from giving him away.  He walked soundlessly past a couple aisles of candy and snacks before sidling the wall next to the door.  He listened to the teenager in the backroom moving packages out of a box, humming some top 40 song to himself, horribly out of tune.  It was enough to make Hannibal reconsider his promise to Will.

Will watched from across the street as the kid emerged from the door. In one quick, graceful motion Hannibal grabbed his head, without being seen, and smashed it against the doorframe, and then lowered the unconscious body to the floor with care. With how practiced it looked, Will wondered how often it happened.  A chill ran down his spine, remembering Hannibal’s extensive lethality. He watched as Hannibal dragged the guy through the store, to behind the cashier’s counter.

When Hannibal’s head popped back up, he found Will’s eyes through the window and immediately offered a wide grin.  Will rolled his eyes and pulled himself to his feet, realizing that that was the signal.

Will crossed the street and entered the store.  He made a beeline for the fridge filled with water bottles, where Hannibal had just finished chugging a few bottles himself.  Will grabbed one, downing it all with long, pulling gulps. He pulled off with a gasp for air, crinkling the bottle then dropping it to the floor.  He grabbed another and repeated.  Hannibal watched amused a few feet away, munching on a granola bar.

Hannibal walked to the doors, turned the lock, switched the sign from ‘open’ to ‘closed’, then he reached behind the counter and switched off the lights.

With the second water bottle emptied, Will huffed raggedly for air, crumping the bottle.  His eyes wandered to furthest corner of the room, were they landed on a small, black camera.  He pointed to it when Hannibal met his eyes.  

“It’s fake,” Hannibal told him cheerfully, returning from the checkout counter with a plastic bag. 

“An interesting demonstration of Foucault’s theory of discipline and punishment,” he mused, as he placed fistfuls of food into the empty shopping bag. “A population’s fear of being surveilled stops it from misconduct, even if it isn’t actually being watched.”

 Will grabbed another water off the shelf and drank it down almost as quickly as the first two, beginning to feel sick with too much water in his belly. He took a trail mix bar off a shelf on his walk to behind the cash register, avoiding the unconscious teenager on the floor.

“Small-town Panopticism,” Will responded absentmindedly, fiddling with the register. 

Hannibal looked up and smiled at the distracted Will, appreciating Will’s understanding his reference.

After a few random button pressing, the register opened for Will.  He pulled out meager wads of cash, lamenting that there wasn’t more.  At least it was enough for a meal and a stay overnight in a motel room, maybe a little more.  The thought of sharing a clean room, being alone with Hannibal, sparked a wave of confusing heat over his body. He shook the thought from his head and tried to refocus.

“We need a car,” Will called.

Hannibal bent his head, considering what Will said.  _We_ , not _you_.  Implying plans to continue on together.  To move from the safety of being able to return to his old life, his wife, his normalcy. His heart expanded at the idea, Will’s willingness to become an accomplice, to risk capture, to escape with him.

He couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he rounded an aisle, searching for the self-care shelf.  Grabbing a few items, he turned and approached the counter, holding out a box of packaged soap, an unopened toothbrush and toothpaste.

“First thing’s first. No respected establishment will accept us smelling the way we do. We’ll clean up, find somewhere to stay overnight, then worry about travel tomorrow.” His tone was light, conversational, as if he were discussing which movie they should go see, instead of the logistics of their get-away plan.

Will took the supplies warily, crossing linoleum floors for the small bathroom in the corner of the store. The bathroom had barely enough room to stand between the toilet and sink, with unwashed yellow tiles illuminated by a dim light.  Will turned on the sink, pulling his grimy shirt over his head.  He examined his dirty skin, sticky with his own blood and sweat.  A few inches down from his collarbone glared the healing angry burn on his chest, still sore and red around the edges.  He moved his gaze up to his face, where his growing beard clustered around the other burn. He turned his head to the side, examining the damage.  It looked nasty, but luckily didn’t call too much attention to itself against the array of his rough appearance.  Setting to work, Will lathered up his hands in a running stream of hot water.

After a few minutes, Will emerged from the bathroom, gently shaking his shirt in the air to get some of the dirt and grime off. Hannibal paused his looting efforts when he looked up.  His eyes immediately scanned over lean muscle, zeroing in to focus on the drops of water dripping off Will’s curls, which had been hastily brushed back with his fingers.  His face, neck, arms and chest were slightly red from scrubbing, and glistened in the gray light slipping in through the window. Hannibal took the sight in as he did all great works of art, thinking of the many the times Will’s beauty caught him off guard, all the times he had to resist reaching out and taking what he wanted. 

Will caught onto being watched and looked up, raising his eyebrows in slight self-consciousness.

“Better?” He asked.

 In response, Hannibal walked across the store calmly, with sharp focus on Will.  He crossed the threshold of an appropriate distance, pressing into Will and backing him up against the doorframe.  Arms already winding to hold, lips pressing in a rough capture.  Anger and repulsion flared up in Will, and he pushed harshly against Hannibal.  Hannibal growled against his lips in response, tongue dipping defiantly and imploringly, pooling hot arousal in Will’s gut, evaporating his protests like leftover rain off sunbaked cement.  Will urgently opened his mouth against Hannibal’s, wanting to taste and take so much, so suddenly, he moaned.  Will’s tongue meet Hannibal’s in flat pressing and slick shoving, and Hannibal felt his grip on himself slipping with each glide of hesitant hands over his skin, each hitched gasp.  

Hannibal attempted to pull away, and it was Will’s turn to growl low, promptly chasing lips.  He re-caught them, sliding his hands to either side of Hannibal’s neck, holding him a touch too hard in place. Hannibal reciprocated only for a moment, enjoying the desperate attention with which Will clung to him.  As if it was impossible to let go, even for a moment.  Like he lived only for this embrace, like he was unwilling or unable to be anywhere else.

After a few dizzying seconds, Hannibal managed to ground himself, knowing time was of the essence. He grinned into the kiss, raising his own hands to the back of Will’s, pulling them away.  He broke the kiss, taking a moment to slow his heart rate.  

“I removed the cashier’s shirt. It’s folded for you on the counter.” And just like that he was back to business, though Will noted the slight labor Hannibal took in maintaining a steady tone.   

He stepped back, passed Will into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. 

Will sighed heavily, trying to will his rapidly beating heart to slow as he made his way over to the counter.  Kissing Hannibal, wanting him, was disorienting on a nearly spiritual level. The second contact was made, Will lost all ability to form coherent thoughts, ability to understand whatever maddening feelings sloshed in his heart.  It was unsettling, uncharted waters, almost as unwelcomed as it was welcomed.  He felt like a young man first learning of intoxication.  Not knowing his limit, just wanting to keep losing himself, to keep drinking as much as he could, despite knowing full well the risks.

He didn’t like being alone, when Hannibal left him with his thoughts.  Intruding darkness wrestled with his new-found highs.  The glory and intensity of whatever was between them shined brightly on a backdrop of forlorn looks from all the innocent people he left behind.  Molly with her son and all their dogs.  Alana with Margot and their son. Jack, widowed. All wondering why he left.  Wondering how he could possibly choose this brutal monster over them.  How he could look past all the innocence slain at the hands of the Chesapeake Ripper.  Asking him if he truly chose him?  If his choice made him even still human. He feared the answer, and didn’t exactly know when he had chosen to keep moving forward with Hannibal, refusing to turn back. He only knew once he gave in for a second, once he hunted with him, once he leaned into those infuriating lips, he was utterly lost to the world.  Resigned to Hannibal’s, freed yet haunted by corrosive guilt.

Hannibal emerging from the bathroom pulled Will from his thoughts. Will looked up and saw a clean, shirtless Hannibal, water meshed in the slight brushing of hair on his chest. Will had never felt such hunger when looking at a man, but as Hannibal stood there, looking tired and impossibly harmless, Will wanted with unfathomable force. He remembered their motel plans again with shaking anticipation.

Hannibal approached the counter and stood beside Will, reaching for a bright orange and camo zip-up hoodie that laid on the counter next to the folded t-shirt.  As Will pulled on the dark blue shirt that was a size or two too big for him, and Hannibal donned the sweatshirt, zipping it up almost all the way. Will looked down at the shirt, balking immediately as he read it for the first time. In large, yellow letters it read “FBI” and below it in only slightly smaller font, “Female Body Inspector.”

 He looked up and glared at Hannibal, who couldn’t contain his smirk even if he wanted to.  Though Will had to admit Hannibal also looked rather ridiculous in an oversized hunting hoodie, with his bare chest peaking above the zipper.  At least the clothes offered something in the disguise department, and allowed them to remove the bloodstained shirts that would have definitely called unwanted attention.

Hannibal reached behind the counter and handed a cylindrical container of Clorox wipes to Will, instructing him to wipe anywhere their fingerprints would have landed.  He then retrieved another empty bag, walking around the store and gathering their water bottles and other trash, including their bloody shirts.  After the clean-up, with all evidence of their being there shoved into a bag, they grabbed the few other bags packed with supplies, and left the store.


	4. Chapter 4

> In the art of kintsugi  
> a potter repairing a broken cup  
> would sprinkle the resin  
>    
> with powdered gold.  
> Sometimes the joints  
> are so exquisite  
>    
> they say the potter  
> may have broken the cup  
> just so he could mend it.
> 
>  
> 
> _Chana Bloch, "The Joints"_

 Getting into the motel was surprisingly easy.  Will assumed that in the truck stop of a town, the motel must have gotten sketchy looking people passing through all the time. 

They had walked down back, empty roads illuminated by an orange setting sun, making sure to stay out of the public’s eye, and munching on stolen bananas and beef jerky.  It was at least a step up from charred rabbit and random insects.  They made it to the other side of town in a few hours, booked a room at some discount motel without a question or second look, and finally were able to collapse on the two queen mattresses in their small, brown room that smelled distantly of cigarette smoke.

Will had his face pressed into the ugly, orange comforter when he heard Hannibal groan and stand.  He rolled onto his back to watch the other man pad over stained carpet, before disappearing out of view into the adjacent bathroom.  He heard the pipes in the wall hissing and the spray of water against tile, and smiled at the invitation Hannibal offered in leaving the bathroom door open. Will considered joining him, but couldn’t find the energy in his bones to move off the hard mattress.  He instead closed his eyes, listened to the varying sounds of buckets of water dropping off Hannibal’s body and hitting the tub.

He was nearly asleep when the water sputtering to a stop.  He stumbled back into consciousness, feeling confusingly hot as he listened to the rustle of towel on skin in the next room.  Soon after, Hannibal emerged with a towel slung around his waist and water dripping from his short hair, which had a comb through it for the first time in days.  

“How was your shower?” Will asked, scooting up the bed to lean his back against the wall.

Hannibal flashed his eyes at him. “Lonely,” he responded with a small grin. 

 Will rolled his eyes and Hannibal’s grin widened.

“After our adventure in the woods, it was heavenly.  The pressure’s surprisingly strong.”

Will’s eyes were closed again, but he hummed in response. 

Despite himself, he had been looking forward to getting Hannibal alone in a hotel room since the idea first crossed his mind, but now that they were sat here, he felt uncomfortable.  There was too much to be said, too much not understood enough to be said, and Will was having a hard time figuring out where to begin. He felt his thoughts begin to crash into each other, racing around in a thousand questions.

“Will,” Hannibal called him back. 

Will’s eyes slid open, and he immediately felt calmer when he met Hannibal’s dark eyes across the room. A low, nauseating anger flared up in response to the calmness; Will feared he’d get whiplash from his unpredictable reactions to this impossible man.

“We don’t have to discuss anything right now.  We’re both emotionally and physically exhausted. Not to mention the absolutely appalling meals for the past few days. If you’d prefer, we can postpone more serious conversation,” he offered, busying himself with pulling back the comforter.

After a moment he looked up with his head still bent, waiting for Will’s response.  Will stared back at him, before offering one hesitant nod.

“First,” Will began, as he lowered his head and rubbed his eyes.  “This,” he gestured between them, speaking with finality, “is everything, now, Hannibal.  God knows why, but it is.  We are both…home.”

Hannibal held Will’s gaze, letting the words penetrate whatever defenses he had set up, finding himself believing them against his better judgement.  He was surprised how easily he accepted it, a truth he’s already known.  Will spoke of a promise between them, offering assurance, settling doubts.  He still held onto suspicion that their idyllic days together would come to an end, that Will would eventually grow bored, or come to his senses. That one day his hate would overpower his draw to Hannibal. But as Hannibal stared back, he couldn’t stop imagining that teacup from their past coming so artfully back together. 

In the silence that followed, Hannibal sunk into the bed.  Will got out of his own, and retreated to the shower.

* * *

 

Half an hour later, Will walked out of the bathroom followed by a plume of steam, as he toweled off his hair with one hand, holding the towel around his waist with the other.  The whole shower, he tried not to think about the decision he was making by staying, by following.  He wondered where the anger went, the resentment.  How he could possibly think of Hannibal on the other side of the wall, and only feel jolts of nerves and arousal.  It was like he’d forgiven him without even meaning to, knowing his nature, knowing he was right all along.  Knowing that long ago Hannibal had somehow saw into the future, their present, saw this, and knew this was where they would end up. Part of Will still hated him, but much more of him knew that that hate was part of a losing battle.

When he entered the room, night had already fallen outside, and a dim lamp was lit next to the bed, coating the room in a warm, yellow glow.  He found Hannibal dozing on his sheets, the towel around his waist nearly slipping off.  He cautiously made his way to the other side of the mattress, standing between the two beds, unsure where he should lie down. He gazed down at the sleeping man, admiring how soft he looked.  He wondered at how many people have ever gotten this view, Hannibal Lecter sleeping naked, his guard seemingly completely down.  His bare chest rose rhythmically, and Will traced each hard line of muscle with his eyes.  If three years ago someone told him he’s be admiring his naked, sleeping, male psychiatrist who happened to also be a cannibalistic serial killer, he would have told them they were out of their mind.  Yet here he was, arousal deep in his belly, eyes following an errant stand of hair slipping down Hannibal’s forehead.

“If you are uncomfortable by the state of our undress, I would not be insulted if you elected to occupy the other bed, Will.” Hannibal didn’t open his eyes as he spoke. 

Will laughed softly, somewhat annoyed at Hannibal’s assuming they would be sharing the bed in the first place.  He ran a hand through his damp hair, unnerved at how quickly calming and welcomed he was finding Hannibal’s voice.  He let the towel fall from his shoulders, leaving the one around his waist, and slipped onto the other mattress, unsure if he could emotionally handle physical intimacy.  He found himself immediately regretting the decision, wanting to return to their previous sleeping arrangement, curled around each other.

“I’m not uncomfortable,” he sighed. “Just confused, I guess.”

He stared up at the popcorn ceiling, and Hannibal turned to lay on his side and face Will.

“Allow me to help,” He offered, lazily gazing up Will’s body, admiring the stern curves. “What is confusing?”

Will smiled with only a little humor. Hannibal waited.

“Much about this lacks…definition,” he spoke softly, choosing his words carefully.

Hannibal considered this. “You’re concerned about labels?” He asked, donning his therapist voice without quite meaning to. 

 “No.” Will grinned. “No, whatever exists between us seems to know no bounds, and beyond that I really don’t need you to call me pet names to clarify any feelings…If you even have those.” Will wondered out loud, turning his head on his pillow to finally meet Hannibal’s gaze.

It was Hannibal’s turn to smile. “Only for you, sweetheart.”

Will rolled his eyes and tried to suppress his growing smile, already feeling warmer, enjoying this lighthearted side to Hannibal. “Right.”

Will let out a shaky sigh in the silence that followed.

“It’s a lot, Hannibal. This, being here.  Not wanting to kill you for the first time in years.  I’m having a hard time rectifying then and now.”

It was silent, then Hannibal spoke. “Where does the difference between the past and the future come from?” He asked, echoing his words spoken years ago, when they’d sat before the _Primavera_. He wondered if Will’s answer would be the same.

Will reached up and pressed his palms against his eyes.

“It’s somewhere along the edge of an eroding bluff,” he said.  

“Before and after the fall?”

“Before and after the baptism,” he responded, quoting Hannibal’s expression from the woods.

“A word that carries religious connotation. I meant what I said.  We are connected now, and I have faith in you, Will.  An inconvenient amount.” He spoke honestly.

Will sighed, removing his hands from his face. Looking upwards still. “I’m ready to follow you. God help me.”

“But you’re worried about following a dysfunctional moral compass.”

Will furrowed his brow. “You don’t have one, sweetheart,” he responded dryly, finally turning to look at Hannibal.  

There was that infuriating face, carved as if from stone by the gods, which had haunted his nightmares, seeped into his fantasies. 

Will’s features slowly hardened, eyes unfocusing, thoughts going darker again. He pictured the field of Hannibal’s victims from his imagination. Monument after monument of murdered innocence.  The grotesque displays of flowers in chests and antlers through breasts didn’t disturb him as much as the fact that these people didn’t deserve to suffer.  They were innocent, normal men and women, going about their daily lives when they happened into Hannibal’s.  He thought about the lives he himself had taken, each of his victims responsible themselves for innocent deaths; those were righteous kills, slain in reverence and vicious beauty.  He wondered where Hannibal would lead him, how far away from righteousness one man could travel. He wanted to trust that Hannibal wouldn’t lead him to breaking.

“I can’t do what you’ve done, Hannibal.” Will finally admitted.

Hannibal considered this, understanding Will’s hesitancy.  Finding himself relieved it didn’t have to do with an uncertainty over their growing intimacy.

“I’ve never asked you to,” he told him. “I’ve only ever wanted you to become exactly who you were meant to be. Who you are.”

“And if who I am disappoints you? Doesn’t live up to any preset standards?”

“Will,” Hannibal sat up, swinging his legs to land on the side of the bed, facing Will.  

The other man looked up, worry swimming in his eyes.

“You’ve done nothing but impress and surprise, since meeting.”  He assured, eyes burning, needing Will to understand the uncharted expectations before them. “We are family, Will.  I promise I will never ask for anything more than you can give.”

Will shuttered, letting the words sink in. He basked in the simplicity and honesty in Hannibal’s tone, the full force of Hannibal’s attention.  He watched Hannibal’s eyes slide from his face, down the length of his body.  He flushed hot, the devouring scrutiny reminding them how completely alone they were, and suddenly the separate beds felt wildly unnecessary.

Will tilted his head, sliding over on the bed slowly. “What do you ask for now?” he asked, suggestion crawling its way into his tone.

Hannibal’s mouth ticked upward, immediately appreciative of the turn in conversation. He stood, letting his towel drop as he crossed the small space between mattresses, carefully lowering himself to his side, slotting next to Will, draping himself half over him.  Will watched stone faced, eyes dancing, heart hammering, a slow warmth saturating his thoughts.  

A wide hand came to hold the nape of his neck, and without another word, tilted head met dipped, lips finding each other easily. Will kissed back smooth and slow, raising a hand to rest against Hannibal’s chest.  Excitement burned low in his gut, enticed by the wide expanse of naked skin lying next to him.  The unknown of this sort of interaction, the newness of stubble grazing, of rougher lips and larger hands, taking exactly what they wanted. Their mouths opened, and their tongues pressed, met and skimmed.

Hannibal pulled back, breaking the kiss. His eyes traveled down Will’s flushed chest, admiring the tinges of rosy pink. He leaned down to press openmouthed kisses along Will’s neck, soon unable to hold himself back from sucking hard, grazing teeth over reddening skin.  He bit firmly into the flesh between Will’s shoulder and neck, drawing a surprised gasp from Will, which swiftly melted into a smothered moan.  Hannibal smoothed the sore area with his tongue, and then gave more bites across Will’s collar bone.  He sucked wet bruises into each patch of soft skin he could find, growing harder at each hushed groan he pulled from Will, loving how vocal he seemed to be beyond his control. Will felt dizzy each time Hannibal’s full hardness met and pressed into his sweaty skin.

Slowly, Hannibal dipped his hand under Will’s towel, to wrap a loose fist around Will’s prominent arousal.  Will’s heart hammering in his chest, unable to wrap his mind around this impossibility. Naked in bed with Hannibal Lecter, feeling savored and devoured at the same time.  Hannibal pushed his own hardness into Will’s side, grinding down against bare thigh as he slid his fist slowly up Will’s length. Will let out a deep exhale, fisting one hand into Hannibal’s hair, the other pushed upward to burrow into pillow.

Both men’s minds were bathed in the fires of arousal, thoughts far from any intellectual form.  Hannibal closed his eyes to listen to Will’s hitched breathing, spiraling his fist tightly and then loosely over Will’s thick length, pausing to swirl around the head before dipping back down.  Will’s eyes were squeezed shut with pleasure, as he thrust up into Hannibal’s warm grip evenly.  He loved every second, every slick slide of hand, every hot strip of tongue on his neck.  His thoughts becoming a garbled mess, Hannibal’s name the only clear word he could land on, feeling those eyes, lips, hands sinking under his skin. Sweat beaded on his forehead, dripped into his hair, and a tightening coil wound with increasing intensity somewhere deep inside him.

“Fuck, Hannibal, fuck,” he breathed, pressing his head backwards into the pillow.

Hannibal’s lips twisted into a smile against his neck, loving the adoration heard in Will’s voice, pulling rarely used language out of Will. He pulled away, so that he could watch Will again, his breath catching at the sight. His eyes raked over the warmly lit, slick skin, Will’s muscles in his stomach clenching, damp curls pressed into pillow. Will began moving erratically, thrusting upward desperately, nails digging into the flesh of Hannibal’s back each time his fist tightened at the base.

Will bit his lip to keep from calling out, as delicious pressure started bubbling over within him. With Hannibal’s fist moving in firm, fast slides, the coil snapped and rushed hot waves sizzling over him, whiting his vision and arching his back off the mattress.  He released onto his chest, his cum coating Hannibal’s fist, which didn’t stop until Will was whimpering.

“Fuck,” Will breathed, slinging an arm over his face, feeling his pulse racing behind his ears.

Hannibal chuckled, appreciating his good work, laying down on his back next to Will, letting his head land on a pillow.

Bliss and exhaustion were already swarming Will as he wiped off with a towel, but he forced himself to roll onto his side, making a sleepy grab for Hannibal’s arousal. Hannibal grinned and lightly pushed Will back onto his back.

“There’s no obligation here, Will,” He told him gently.

Will rolled back over defiantly, curling himself into Hannibal’s side.  Hannibal lifted his arm to let Will lay where he wanted, wrapping it along his back with a contented sigh.  Will snaked his hand down Hannibal’s chest, taking hold of Hannibal’s cock lying painfully hard on his belly.  Through closing eyes he watched his hand give long, lazy tugs, mesmerized by the pearl of pre-cum forming at the tip of the head.  He felt half in a trance, listening to Hannibal’s breathing coming faster, watching his own fist moving over the other man in steady pulls.  He’d never done this to another man, but just tried to do what he liked, paying attention to what made Hannibal’s breath hitch, or hand around his waist squeeze harder.  He found it wildly enjoyable, wondering if it was just because it was Hannibal, or if this was something he might have always found arousing.  

Hannibal had imagined this moment many times, how he would finally coax Will into bed with him.  All the things he’d show him, how intricately and indulgently he’d take him.  He always assumed it’d be on thousand thread-count sheets, fine wine on their breaths, and a dramatic fire to illuminate their writhing, naked forms.  He never imaged he’d be gripping at burnt orange, scratchy comforter in a rattrap motel, thrusting un-rhythmically into a sloppy hand job from a half-asleep Will.  But that didn’t make the pleasure swarming his senses any less captivating, or his maddening adoration for Will any less breathtaking.  It was wet and slow and perfect.

“I’ve wanted to watch you cum since I found you in your office after Tobias Budge.  After I found out you killed him,” Will shared conversationally.  He happily noted the nearly inaudible groan from Hannibal and continued. “It was odd, the image coming to me so suddenly later that night, when I did this for myself. I’d never fantasied about another male before, but I couldn’t help it. It was some unnamable turn-on that you were attacked by a psychopath and you came out on top.  My unassuming, harmless psychiatrist killing a killer, taking a life.  It made us feel closer somehow. Of course, this was way before I knew you.”

Will didn’t know why he was sharing the memory, but he figured now was as good a time as any. It was obviously doing something for Hannibal, whose breaths and upward thrusts were coming much faster.

“Imagining you fighting for your life, God I wanted to fuck you right there.  In the same room you toyed with my mind, the same room you killed Tobias.  I had no idea what to do with that information; Lord knows where we would be if we had begun sleeping together way back then.  I imagine you would have killed me already.”

“It’s a very good thing we didn’t, then.” Hannibal’s voice was low and rough.

“How would you have done it, seduced me?  I image there’d be some kind of extreme recipe, expensive wine and classical music.”

“Will-” Hannibal could only gasp his name, his body tensing up.

Will smiled, loving how close Hannibal was. “You could have, Hannibal.  You could have taken me any time you wanted.  All those late night dinners, long talks in your office.  I would have let you fuck me on that giant desk, or in that pretentious dining room, in your kitchen, really anywhere in that massive house. And don’t get me started on Florence.”

Hannibal roughly spoke in a language Will didn’t understand, and came in long ropes over his bare chest. Will continued his slow pulls until Hannibal was completely spent. When he pulled his hand away, Hannibal rolled them over immediately and caught Will’s lips with his own.  He kissed deep and desperate, in praise, gratitude and celebration. 

Will’s rambling had reminded Hannibal of how far they’d come, how many stages of separation and togetherness.  He remembered that day, watching Will walk into his office after he’d killed Franklin and Tobias.  The worry he’d seen in Will’s face, the comradery as he allowed himself to be warmed by those eyes, both distracted, shy smiles exchanged sitting in an active crime scene. It was one of the first times he considered Will a friend, even if he’d been lying to him about most things.  He was overwhelmed to be sharing a bed now, no secrets between them at all.

Hannibal pulled away slowly, opening his eyes to look down at Will.  Will kept his eyes closed, but let a tired smile pull at the corners of his mouth.


	5. Chapter 5

> "Truck stops and river Gods, gas stations of the Cross…I pray the water wash away the memories and the cost.”
> 
>             Counting Crows _God of Ocean Tides_

When Will woke, the early morning sun was just creeping through the heavy curtains of their small room.  Hannibal had rolled away from him in his sleep, and now laid on his back, one arm slung over his head.  When Will turned his head to look towards the window, he noticed his and Hannibal’s clothes on hangers directly above the air conditioning unit, which hummed at full blast. They looked slightly less dirty, with hard wrinkles; Hannibal must has gotten up and washed them before going to sleep.  Will wondered at the man’s ability to keep going, to be able to care for them both even at the point of exhaustion.

He swung his legs over the side of the mattress and padded into the bathroom.  He took a sip of water from the little sink-side cup, before staring at his reflection; it was the first time he’d really looked at himself in what felt like an eternity, and he barely recognized what he saw.  His beard had grown out slightly, and his curls stood up on top of his head in odd directions.  There were dark shadows around his eyes, and the charred skin on his face glared back at him.  Still, he felt there was something about him that looked lighter, easier.  Despite looking rougher then he had in a long time, the creases in his face seemed unburdened, the haunting that had followed him around for years was gone.  He had a calmness about him that reminded him of Hannibal’s, as if everything around him was fascinating in a distant way, pleasing.

As much as he wished to be free of worry the way Hannibal could be, their past still drifted into his thoughts at odd moments.  A deep-seated guilt came gnawing again, reminding him to be wary of this killer even still.  He trusted Hannibal with his life completely, but not so much with the loose ends in their past.  His stomach clenched around the idea of Hannibal telling him he was going to kill Jack, or Alana, or Molly or Margot or even Zeller or Price.  Anyone to whom he still owed a reckoning.  Worse still, Will felt sick at the image of Hannibal sneaking into the night, brutalizing the people of his past, keeping deadly secrets.  Will closed his eyes and shook his head; he needed to trust Hannibal, to know there would be no more lies.

He turned on the shower and, waiting for it to warm, he moved back to the sink and lathered his chin up, careful to avoid the healing burn.  He did what he could with the complimentary razor, taming his facial hair into a light shadow over his chin.  When that was done he moved into the shower.  He inhaled deeply under the hot spray, letting it roll over his shoulders and down his back. He spent extra care this time to clean out all the stray pieces of earth from his hair, scrubbing at left over dirt and blood still caked on his legs and feet. As he washed, his thoughts drifted to the night prior, recalling their intimacy with burning skin. It had been nearly overwhelming in his tired state, the giving and receiving of such pleasure, such connection. He wondered at this budding aspect of his sexuality, at this addition to his becoming.  It felt inevitable, as if joining his body with Hannibal’s was only the next step to follow their intellectual and spiritual blurring. 

Pulling himself out of his runaway thoughts, he shut off the water, and wrapped himself in a towel.  When emerged from the bathroom, Hannibal was already up, tinkering with the coffee maker on a small desk near the window. 

“Good morning,” Hannibal greeted pleasantly, not looking up.

Will padded over the rough carpet to the air conditioning unit, where he began gathering the tattered remains of his clothes. They were considerably less dirty, but the wide blood stains still spread in dark shadows.

“These smell like dish soap.” He wrinkled his nose and looked to Hannibal.

There was that lighthearted grin again, seemingly ever-present these days. “It’s all the gas station had,” he apologized.

Will laid the clothes on the bed, continuing to towel off.  Hannibal’s eyes glowed as he watched the white cloth brush over damp, clean skin.  Will shifted uncomfortably under the intense gaze, dropping the towel to pick up the slacks.  He noticed Hannibal had gotten rid of both their underwear, and he wondered with a slight smile if that was by necessity or preference.

“So what’s the plan?” he asked, sliding on each pant leg.

“I have a safe house in Maine.  About a two day’s drive from here.”

_Of course you do_ , Will wanted to say, but held his tongue.  At least one of them was prepared for something like this.  However, anxiety tightened in the back of Will’s mind as he noted Hannibal’s plan only accounted for the next couple day. He wondered what could possibly come after.

* * *

Will had never stolen a car before, but judging by Hannibal’s ease in the act, he assumed the other man definitely had some practice in the art. They had selected a modest, grey sedan for the journey, going with anonymity over style.  To their surprise it had been left unlocked in back of some random parking lot near where they had stayed.  Hannibal made quick work of hotwiring, and they were kicking up dirt before noon.

The next two days passed in a blur of highways and truck stops. Fatigue still creeped in Will’s bones, so he mostly slept in the car’s buzzing AC as Hannibal drove in silence.  His body was thankful for the opportunity to rest and heal, however by dinner he had grown quite weary of fast food and diners.  At least he was fairing much better than poor Hannibal, tarnishing his sophisticated pallet with each meal.  At least he could cross ‘watching the great Dr. Hannibal Lecter grimacing at a Wendy’s sandwich’ off his bucket list, who had held the food as if it were poisoned. Will had laughed out loud at Hannibal’s pained expression, taking an enthusiastic bite from his own burger.

They had been driving for a whole day when Hannibal’s eyes began drooping as he stared blearily out the windshield, a bright sunset glowing off the empty road.  He had pulled over behind a patch of bushes along some no-name path to rest his eyes. A few hours later Will woke, shook Hannibal, and insisted on switching positions.  Hannibal had accepted, and was soon mumbling the directions as his head slumped back against the passenger seat headrest.  He was out within seconds.  Ah, so he wasn’t a machine, Will thought.  He continued to drive through the night, stopping for gas as needed. 

They switched back just as the sun was beginning to rise, and spoke quietly about nothing for the rest of the day as Hannibal guided the car down gravel then dirt roads, curving through thickly forested mountain terrain.

The car finally stopped before a log and brick cabin that stood next to a wide lake, which shined white in the vicious late-afternoon sun.  Will stumbled from the car, followed Hannibal around the back and watched him fish a key from a hiding spot in the wall of the house. As they made their way into the dark back room, through an expensive looking kitchen and warmly furnished living room, Will’s eyes traveled over all the extravagant decorations, asking himself when the hell Hannibal could ever find time to fully furnish an entire secret house.  He questioned how many other side homes the man had stashed away.

Hannibal wordlessly took Will’s hand, interlacing their fingers delicately, and guided him up a short flight of wood stairs, to the large master room. Lead to the bed, Will blearily took in the sparse decorations and dark blue walls. No lights were turned on, no words spoken.  The two men fell onto the king-sized bed swimming with soft, white bedding, tangling into each other’s arms.  As Will drifted to sleep, head nuzzled into the crook of Hannibal’s neck, he recalled the first night they had slept in the woods, when he was sure they were going to die.  He had clung so tightly to Hannibal, as if he were the only thing to tether him to earth, to life itself.  Now, surrounded by downy pillows and dangerously soft sheets, he found himself clinging with the same fervor as that first night. His last thought before unconsciousness took him was that he would gladly do so for the rest of his life.


	6. Chapter 6

 

> “Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”
> 
>         John Keats    

Will sat on the back deck, which offered a breathtaking view of the wide lake.  Grey clouds crowded around the afternoon sun, muting the daylight.  He watched a breeze roll through clusters of trees, then closed his eyes to listen to the hushed rustling.  He felt a calmness here, at home among large pines, open water and calling birds and bugs.  Early this morning he found a pair of jeans and a grey sweater in Hannibal’s closet; he slipped into the comfort of clean, warm clothes as he watched the fog lift off the lake from the window. 

 He admired Hannibal’s cabin having nearly every comfort he could ask for, but couldn’t help thinking it was missing a dog.  He had imaged Winston curled at the foot of the bed this morning, or nudging his hand for a scratch as he sipped coffee and walked in the dew covered morning before Hannibal woke.  Will didn’t quite know where they would end up, but he knew he probably would never see that dog again.  The thought pinched a nerve in his heart, thinking of who else he couldn’t have contact with ever again. 

 Hannibal was now inside making lunch, doing what he could with the storage of nonperishables.  Will had wandered out to the porch when he had realized he’d be of no help in the kitchen and that Hannibal was too concentrated on trying to make something gourmet out of canned soups and dried vegetables.  As Will sat in a wood chair next to a matching table, he thought about Molly, wondering how she was taking his disappearance.  He had never intended to drag her into all this; when they first got together she offered a normalcy he never believed he’d get. He could picture them in the past, after he’d told her all the gory details.  She had cried and held him so close, and he promised the darkness was fully a thing of his past.  Her love had permeated thick skin, and for a while he believed Hannibal was gone for good.

Well, maybe not for good.  Even in the long stretch of three years without seeing Hannibal, the other man haunted him. Showing up in his dreams, asking where he went, when he’d be back. If he really believed this was what he wanted, reminding him it wasn’t.  When he and Molly would tangle together in the night, Hannibal’s voice would be panting in his mind, his face just a breath away.  When Will drank, he’d sometimes imagine Hannibal sat across from him, picking through his brain, or asking about classic literature and renaissance art. There were times he wasn’t sure if the visions were a hallucinations or purposeful products of imagination, but when Hannibal would eventual disappear and leave Will sitting so extraordinarily alone, Will found himself aching for him to return.  

Molly offered companionship, a warm family and an understanding ear, but she never caught him on fire the way Hannibal did.  She never danced through his broken thoughts or cut deeply into who he believed he was.  She never challenged him, shook his foundation, reconstructed him. Hannibal had so brutally and artistically broke him apart and offered a rebirth.  Made him a phoenix from the flame.  Had Hannibal never entered his life, Will would have been happy with someone as lovely and kind as Molly.  But with Hannibal came an introduction to devastating beauty and inhuman highs, a release from crippling morality and confusion.  He now understood there was never any one else, couldn’t have been.

“I must apologize for this meal.” Hannibal’s voice startled Will out of his thoughts.

He looked up and saw Hannibal placing two clear glass bowls containing something dark brown and steaming on the table in front of Will.

“Until we can get fresh ingredients, it’s the best I can offer,” Hannibal continued, placing down the two water bottles he’d carried under his arm, then scooting his chair forward.

“This is perfectly fine, Hannibal. Before I met you, I lived off Chunky’s and Chef Boyardee,” Will reassured him, reaching for a spoon.  The warm, savory smell wafted over him, causing his stomach to growl.

“I’m not entirely sure what either of those are, but they sound appalling,” he responded, looking genuinely put off by the idea of Will heating up anything from a can in his little kitchen.

Will laughed out loud and pushed around the chunks of vegetables and beans in his soup.

“I could tell you horror stories of what I used to pass as food.  For a while in college it was instant ramen and hot pockets.”

Hannibal’s frown deepened. “Will, please, I’m trying to eat.”

“Actually, I recently started enjoying Pop Tarts.  Molly would get them for Walter’s breakfasts and I’d sneak one whenever I could.”

It was Will’s turn to frown, remembering mornings in their kitchen, Molly rushing Walter into something wearable, trying to get him fed and out the door on time.  He’d sit and enjoy the show with a mug of steaming coffee, offering a harmless smile whenever she’d throw a glare.

 “Do you miss them?” Hannibal asked.

Will paused, thinking about how sometimes she’d kiss him awake and they’d lay in bed laughing into each other’s smiles.  Or when he would walk in on her in the shower just to join her, lift her against the hot tiles and fuck with a playful lightheartedness.  He wondered if Hannibal had ever been silly in his life.

“I do,” Will told him, staring past Hannibal’s face, looking towards the water in the distance. “It was so easy.  Simple.  I never felt guilty about anything.”

“And do you feel guilty now?” Hannibal asked, willing him to meet his gaze.  Will’s forest green eyes reflected the trees around him when he finally met Hannibal’s deep browns, reflecting only the sun.

“About somethings,” Will admitted with a tilt of his head. “I imagine my choice must have hurt them.”

Hannibal knew the ‘them’ extended past Will’s brief, small family.

“That understandable.  It’s often difficult to disregard those whose lives have greatly affected our own.” Hannibal mused, before putting a spoonful into his mouth.

Will snorted.  “I don’t think they’ll stay with me as long as you did.” He was remembering how often his thoughts used to drift to the life they could have lived, somewhere in Europe with Abigail.

Hannibal grinned slightly. “Let’s hope not.”

It was quite for a long time, Will lost in thought.  When both had finished their meals, Will broke the silence.

“Are you going to kill them?” He asked, feeling his lower belly twist into knots at the question.

Hannibal put down his utensil and looked at Will steadily.

“I have considered it.”

Will nodded, expecting the answer.

“Would you pardon them? If I asked you to?”

Hannibal thought about it. “I suppose it depends on who you’re asking about?”

“All of them. Hannibal, all of them. Jack, Alana, Fredrick, Margot, Molly, the whole kingdom.” Will could hear the intensity in his voice, hear it shake.

“That’s a lot of mercy you’re asking for, Will.”  Hannibal’s head shook back and forth slightly as he spoke slowly.

His eyes were hard on him, but Will stared back as an equal this time, knowing he had a lot to bargain with.

“They’re innocent, Hannibal.  I can’t have their blood on my hands.” He felt a low desperation pacing in his chest, like a tiger in a cage.

“So innocence is off the table all together?” Annoyance crept into Hannibal’s voice.

The words felt cold as they rolled over Will, whose eyebrows tented.

“Both metaphorical and dinner.”

Hannibal exhaled hotly as he crossed his legs. “And to whose definition of innocence am I to be restricted?”

Will felt heat rising in his face, the word ‘restricted’ stinging. He didn’t respond, knowing Hannibal knew his answer already.

“You knew exactly who I was when you chose me, Will.” Ah, there it was.  The violet touch of hurt in his voice. The lightest shade of rejection.

“And you knew exactly who I was when _you_ chose _me_.” 

They were at an impasse, eyes bearing into each other. Finally Hannibal let his look fall into his lap, eyelashes brushing his cheeks.

“Would you leave?” He asked after a brief silence, voice calmer than it had been.

Will exhaled shakily, the idea of being separated from Hannibal again feeling like a punch in the gut. He pulled himself out of his chair, leaning down to let his hand travel up the outer side of Hannibal’s thigh. His other hand cupped the side of his jaw. Their lips ghosted against each other, Hannibal’s question hanging in the air around them.

“Never,” Will breathed.

Hannibal growled, shooting out of his chair.  His hands clutched a touch too tight to the sides of Will’s head, and he had him instantly shoved up against the side of the house, head slammed against stonework.  His lips grabbed aggressively against Will’s, impatiently pushing his tongue into Will’s warm, open mouth.  Will could taste his anger, feel it in his harsh grinds, in his fingers clutching in his hair.  Hannibal dragged Will’s bottom lip through tight teeth, eliciting a helpless groan.  He pushed Will’s hands above his head, harshly shoving his wrist into the stone.

He moved his thin lips to hover against Will’s ear. “If I came home, covered in Alana Bloom, Served you her heart with a red wine—you wouldn’t leave?”

He was taunting him, testing him.  Will shuttered, seeing Hannibal’s plans falling to ruin in his mind at Will’s feet.

“She would prefer a beer,” he returned, eyes closed.

Hannibal growled, licking his way from under Will’s earlobe to the crook of his neck.  There were still bruises there from the night in the motel, and Hannibal sunk his teeth into them.

“Hannibal,” Will breathed, feeling his legs going weak.

“Answer the question,” Hannibal ordered, his tone slightly less aggressive.

“I wouldn’t.  I wouldn’t,” Will chanted.

“What if I was on my way out the door for Jack Crawford.  Would you try to stop me?” Hannibal’s lips ghosted over Will’s skin as he talked.

“Please, Hannibal.”

“Would you?”

“I-I don’t. I don’t know.” Will’s voice was small in defeat.  He was unable to slow his thoughts down, his racing heart from having Hannibal so intoxicatingly close, demanding the impossible from him.

Hannibal pulled away, letting his hands drop to his side.

“You would fight me, for him?   Loose me- this- to protect his life?”

An insect whistled loudly somewhere off near the lake, punctuating the silence that followed as they glowered at each other. Will shook his head.

“Why does it have to be all or nothing?” He sounded miles away. “They were my friends, Hannibal.  I left them all, betrayed their trust, my promises. All for this. I chose you. I can’t stop you from doing what you want, and I won’t fight you anymore. I can’t.  I can’t. I don’t belong anywhere but on your side.” He sighed, slumping back against the house.

More silence stretched heavy between them. Hannibal’s eyes searched Will’s body language for any sign of lies, any manipulation.  All he saw was a tired man.

“If I asked you not to, would you leave?” Will finally asked.

Hannibal’s chest tightened at the words, wondering if he were truly willing to leash himself for Will.


	7. Chapter 7

 

> “I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.”   
>           Leo Tolstoy

 

Hannibal sat in a wide armchair, an aged copy of Dante’s _La Divina Commedia_ perched in his lap.  He’d found himself reading the same passage over and over again, not digesting any of it.  A fire roared in the hearth, but leant nothing to the chill in the room.  Will stormed out after Hannibal had been unable to answer Will’s question, grabbing the keys and muttering something about laying low. Hannibal sat alone for hours, willing himself not to overthink wherever the other man went. That had been late afternoon, and now it was nearing midnight. Hannibal was almost ready for bed, his heart hardening by each passing hour. 

He attempted to convince himself Will would be back, that he just needed to go get drunk somewhere, maybe spend the night with some no-name. The idea leaked iron into his blood, and if Will thought whoever else he slept with wasn’t fair game, then he was sorely mistaken.  Worse, the idea of Will not stopping somewhere in town, and him just continuing to drive south.  Back to Baltimore, back to Jack.  Back to Molly. Hannibal slammed his book shut and shoved it on the side table.

He walked into the kitchen and poured himself another drink, wondering when he became the type of person to drink because of someone else.  The indignity of it all made his blood curdle. How dare Will just disappear for hours, leaving him alone with his thoughts.  Leaving him to worry.  No, no he wasn’t worrying.  He doesn’t _worry_. He simply thinks.  He considers possible options. Scenarios. And if some of those scenarios made him want to snap something fragile, or tear certain people limb from limb, then so be it. 

He imaged Will coming back hours later.  He imaged him rummaging through the kitchen for the biggest knife he could find.  He imaged him standing above their new bed, staring down at his sleeping form.   Not blinking as he shoved the knife into Hannibal’s chest, between his ribs and straight into his newfound heart.  He imaged Will’s grim smile as the last thing he’d ever see.  He felt sick at himself for being mildly ok with it.  He wasn’t sure if he could fight Will.  He remembered that night on the cliff, Will’s blood soaking into his mouth, that deadly focus in his eyes.  If that concentration were to be turned on him, he might find himself gazing in awe rather than fighting back.  And if he were to fight back, he’d find no pleasure, no thrill in the hunt.  It would be slaughtering half himself, destroying a masterpiece. Would that be worth it? If anyone were worthy of taking his life, it’d be that magnificent creature.

The click of the front door opening pulled Hannibal from his thoughts.  He looked down and found he was already holding a knife, and adjusted his hand carefully on the grip. He stood straight in the kitchen, taking a long sip from his wine, waiting.  Heavy footsteps fell in the short hallway, and although they were slightly uneven, he immediately recognized them as Will’s. When the other man turned the corner, Hannibal’s eyebrows raised in small surprise.  Will’s nose was very recently smashed, and blood still poured from it like a geyser, down over his mouth and chin.  Hannibal’s eyes focused in on the smear of blood against round lips, and he smirked, realizing he’d just been thinking about a similar image.  A blackness roamed in Will’s eyes as he stared back at Hannibal.

 “Honey, I’m home.” He husked, voice low and panting, as he let his blood drip from his chin to the floor. 

Hannibal’s eyes lit up, and sparks sizzled in his chest, immediately remembering why he’d chosen Will over everything else. He set the knife down.

“Will.  I was beginning to wonder,” he said casually over the rim of his wineglass, before taking another slow sip.

Will limped slowly to the other side of the counter Hannibal stood at, which was lined with high, wrought iron bar stools. He slumped himself into it as Hannibal poured him a whiskey and set it in front of him, along with a damp paper towel.

“Wild night?” He asked coldly.

“You could say that,” Will replied, tiredly wiping his face.  When he was finished he took a long pull from his glass.

Hannibal waited, examining the smear of blood on his face, noticing a forming bruise under his right cheek bone. Will sighed before looking up at Hannibal.

“I got a little drunk at some bar down on the side of town.  I lost track of time.  On the walk back to my car, these two guys tried to jump me.” Hesitancy seeped into his words, remembering the scene that followed.

Hannibal nodded, pursing his lips.

“I-um,” Wil swallowed hard. “I was going to kill them.”

“They should be so lucky,” Hannibal mused with a tick of an eyebrow.

“It was…intoxicating. I couldn’t stop.  I didn’t even think to.” Will closed his eyes, heart still hammering from the high of feeling the guy’s bones crushing against his knuckles as he landed blow after blow into his limp form. If the other guy hadn’t pulled himself up from where he’d been knocked down and then tackle Will, there would have been much more blood. Much more clean up.

Hannibal’s eyes watched Will’s fingers gently run over his torn knuckles.

“I fucked up, Hannibal,” Will said after some silence, the bourbon from early mingling with his new drink, floating his thoughts looser.

“I would have killed them, and Jack would have come running.  I put us in danger, Hannibal.  I’m sorry.” He dropped his face into his hands, shame heating in his gut.

Hannibal made a gentle hush. “But you didn’t, Will, and we are safe.  You never have to apologize to me for losing yourself in those moments; you’re new to embracing this. Mistakes are bound to be made.”  After a pause he added, “I’m only upset that you were out so late; you had me worried.”

Will looked up, eyes slightly watery. He creased his brow.

“Worried?” Humor tinged his voice.

“Yes,” Hannibal smiled warmly, walking around the counter to stand beside Will.  “It appears we are both on a learning curve tonight.”

Hannibal leaned against the side of the counter, his wine glass in the arm bent against the surface.  His other hand reached up to wipe a smudge of blood from just below Will’s bottom lip. Will looked up at him, a world of green wonder in his eyes, feeling his skin prickle where Hannibal’s hand lingered.

“I’m glad you came back, Will,” Hannibal finally spoke, fingers tracing the hard lines of cheekbone and jaw. Stubble tickling fingertips, scars and burns whispering for him to keep touching.

“Always,” Will responded in a hushed tone, shutting his eyes, feeling his chest flutter at the honesty there.

Hannibal’s grin slowly softened from his face as he gazed at the man before him: fearful of his becoming, fiery and untamable and yet continually returning to him, trembling and obedient. 

“l'universo sentisse amor, per lo qual è chi creda più volte il mondo in caòsso converso,”The Italian flowed off Hannibal’s tongue smooth and musical, his voice hushed as if to mimic the silence around them.

Will’s dark lashes slid open. “If you’re going to keep saying long, romantic things to me in Italian, I _am_ going to leave,” Will taunted.

Hannibal grinned as he straightened up, and took the short step forward to be standing close to Will.  He wrapped his arms around his shoulders, burying a hand in Will’s hair and pulling his head to rest on his chest.

Wills eyes open a sliver, where they landed on the knife still sitting out. He just now recalled Hannibal holding it when he walked in.

“Were you expecting a fight?” Will asked in a hushed tone, imaging what Hannibal could have been preparing for. Wondering if he would have fought back.

“Simply a runaway imagination.  You were rather angry when you left, and you were gone for hours,” Hannibal shared, now slightly regretting his jumps to such conclusions.

Will turned his head to rest his chin on Hannibal’s chest, smile lines crinkling his eyes.

“I really did worry you,” he couldn’t keep the amusement out of his voice, thinking of Hannibal pacing and waiting up for him like a nervous mother.

Hannibal huffed. “Let’s not make it a habit,” he responded tersely.

He was surprised by the tightness of Will’s grip around his waist, hugging him closely and hiding his face in his shirt.  He felt Will’s smile pressing into his chest, and a responding grin graced his lips.  He placed his hand on Will’s head, threading his long fingers through unruly curls.

After a moment he pulled away gently, reaching down to take Will’s hands in his.  The skin was broken over a couple knuckles, and a small smear of dried blood crusted over the scrapes.  He ran his thumb softly over each raised bone, imaging what they must have looked like in action.  He leaned his head down and raised Will’s hands to push his lips against each knuckle, gliding smooth kisses over each curve of hand.  Will leaned his head against Hannibal’s forehead, loving the gentle wetness Hannibal placed in reverence.  It was an apology, a forgiving, a plea. They both were remembering their earlier fight, and what hung in the balance.

“Will, ask me.” Hannibal commanded.

Will’s breath caught in his throat. He rolled his forehead against Hannibal’s, eyes closed.

“Don’t, Hannibal.  Don’t kill them. For me.”

Within seconds their lips were crashing over each other’s, Hannibal nearly knocking Will off his stool.  He gripped wildly at his hair, his neck, his shoulders. Will’s mouth opened for Hannibal, an urgent tongue shoving over lip and teeth and tongue.

* * *

Will woke before the sun was up, a gasp on his breath and hands clenching warm sheets.  A cold darkness crowded around him, and yet sweat gathered at the base of his neck and back.  Hannibal lay deep in sleep next to him, one arm slung low across his belly. Images of his past swarmed out of his dreams into thoughts, the faces of those left behind battered and covered in blood.  Their bodies contorted, mutilated and displayed.  Jack’s severed head, his heart clenched between his teeth and eyes hallowed out.  Alana’s and Margot’s bodies hanging from some high ceiling, both their wombs torn out, dripping below.  Even Molly, her wide, dead eyes watching him, asking him why why why.  Why did he do it? In each dream he knew they were all his, not Hannibal’s.  In each scene his hands were smeared with dark stains of blood.  They were his design. As Will laid awake, eyes wide open and unseeing into the darkness, he wondered if it was really Hannibal he had to be worried about.

Memories of the night’s pleasures flooded as a counter balance to the nightmares.  He closed his eyes and breathed deep, remembering their stumbling through the cabin to the bedroom, unable to pull away from each other for more than two seconds.  Hannibal stopping to slam him against every wall on the way, hands possessively gripping against his hips.  Them spilling into the bedroom, Hannibal climbing on top of him with such unabashed hunger, an elegance in his desperation. The room bathed in moonlight, their skin glowing white against the night. The soft sheets swimming around their sweaty bodies as Hannibal reverently pealed each article of clothes off, savoring the slide of fabric against taunt skin. Leaving his own clothes on, Hannibal ran his lips over every inch of skin he could find.  The soft pulling and dragging, the clenching.  Hannibal’s hot mouth sucking long, wet kisses closer and closer to his leaking hardness, teasing lasting for what felt like hours.  His panting falling out of his mouth hung open, begging into open air.

Laying in the darkness now, Will felt his chest growing hot, remembering how desperately he chanted for Hannibal to fuck him.  He had felt that mischievous grin press against his thigh, before he was suddenly enveloped wholly by Hannibal’s hot mouth.  He had groaned loudly, letting his head fall backwards onto the pillow.  Hannibal’s tongue swirled around the heavy head as he worked him deep into his throat.  Two strong hands held Will’s waist down from slamming up, as he swallowed him down entirely, burying his nose in the dark gathering of hair.  He pulled off completely to admire the way Will’s length twitched desperately, before leaning back down for long slides of tongue.  Will couldn’t keep his legs still, shoving them around the silky sheets in tight pleasure, his hands buried in Hannibal’s soft hair. 

One of Hannibal’s hands left Will’s hip to slither between his own legs.  He was growing distractingly too hard, straining against his slacks.  With Will’s thick length pushing against the back of his throat, he made quick work of the buttons of his pants, and had his fist immediately buried beneath his boxers. Will propped his head up on a pillow bunched around his fist to watch.  His eyelids were heavy as he drank in the sight, Hannibal touching himself, eyes watering and Will’s cock pushing deep.  He wasn’t sure who came first, his long, rough calls of Hannibal’s name on his tongue mixing in the air with the other man’s low grunts. 

Hannibal climbed back up his body and collapsed with a sated sigh next to him.  Will immediately curled under his arm to lay his head on his shoulder, a position he was finding himself increasingly drawn to.  His hand came up to rest against Hannibal’s, who began tracing his thumb absentmindedly over the still sore knuckles.  They didn’t speak again, both exhausted and blissful.

As Hannibal drifted to sleep, he remembered how it felt sitting up for Will earlier that night, the ache he felt imagining him driving away.  The relief in seeing him again.  He wondered when he’d become so enamored, so dependent.  His whole life he’d seen it as a weakness, hitching your wellbeing to another person entirely.  But trusting someone enough to fall asleep next to them, not knowing if they were asleep or not, felt good.  He had assumed he’d feel restrained, held back by the need to consider someone else over himself.  And yet he felt liberated by the idea of letting go, for Will.  It struck him as the most beautiful thing in the world. The opportunity to honor him, to prove how much he was willing to give up if he could have that mind, that body forever.

 Will now laid awake, thinking of Hannibal’s promise, wondering what was next for them.  Now that they had that out of the way, the world lay open before them. They could travel anywhere, be anyone.  However, he found that he wanted to stay at that cabin forever.  Hiding in the woods, fucking each other senseless in every room by day, curling around each other by night.  They could get a dog, he could fish in the lake.  It would be so quiet, so peaceful.  He wondered if Hannibal could do that- settle down. If bloodlust would drag them out of any home, any town. If he could continue to delight in it the same way Hannibal did.  He wanted to continue what they started, to explore this new aspect of humanity in himself. He wanted to hunt like they did on that night, on the cliff.  He just didn’t want to lose himself, like he had with those muggers earlier in the evening.  Without Hannibal there as a guide, a tether, he was so utterly submerged, so drunk off the act that he couldn’t find his way back down.  And that scared him, more than anything else.  He wondered if one day he would wake up and see the bodies from his nightmares laying at his feet.  He wasn’t sure if Hannibal would ever hold him back from that, or what tethered Hannibal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation: “The universe had felt the love by which, as some believe, oft times the world has been converted into chaos” Dante's The Inferno, Cantos XII, line 43.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: use of homophobic slurs, a brief story of homophobic violence, and later canon type violence

> “There will be killing till the score is paid.”   
>            Homer,  _T_ _he Odysse_ _y_

 

The opportunity to stretch out their new partnership came faster than either had expected.  When Hannibal had asked Will to a proper dinner, somewhere discrete but elegant in the neighboring city, he had expected expensive food and fancy suits (his borrowed from Hannibal’s unsurprisingly extensive closet).  He didn’t think the evening would end with another man’s blood coating his face, soaking into his shirt. Though really, he shouldn’t have expected anything less from a date with Hannibal Lecter.

* * *

 Will stood in front of a long mirror in the master bedroom, fidgeting with the ridiculous cufflinks Hannibal had given him to wear. Or maybe to keep, he wasn’t entirely clear.   Hannibal had attempted to get him into a darkly checkered three piece suit, but Will had outright refused.  Hannibal tried to explain where they were going he’d want a tie, and Will told him he’d never wanted a tie in his life.  Exasperated, Hannibal settled on a pressed dark green button up with grey pants and a sporty suit jacket.  Will felt mildly childish having his outfit picked out for him, and he wondered how many more matching ties and pocket squares he’d have to bear in his life.

Will disliked the idea of going out at all, but Hannibal had insisted, saying they needed to celebrate how far they’ve come.  Will was 90% sure that Hannibal had just gone too long without a fancy four course meal and live classical music as he dined.

He had been secretly dreading the night since it was proposed, not wanting to sit in some stuffy dining room with pretentious chatter drifting around them all night.  He had gotten used to the silence of the cabin, listening to Hannibal leaf through his books, gliding pencil over thick sketch paper, or sizzling something in the kitchen.  He loved the privacy of their little world, how deeply their conversations would drift through philosophy, history, culinary arts, or psychology.  And when they weren’t deep in an intellectual battle of wits, they talked about the three years they spent apart like old friends, Will avoiding the topic of his ex-wife and Hannibal bringing it up as much as Will could tolerate. However, for the few days they’ve lounged around the house, neither one mentioned leaving, or any other plans at all.

No matter what they were doing, they always seemed to be touching in some way, as if their skin needed to be in constant contact with each other, making up for lost time.  Will felt like a teenager again, the way he found himself so easily distracted by every stray touch.  Cooking breakfast, Will would feel electric with Hannibal pressing at his back, hands holding his waist or guiding Will’s attempts at cooking.  When they sat on the couch to read he would curl under Hannibal’s arm, and often when they sat in companionable silence, Hannibal’s hand would find his.

Each touch spread a hungry warmth over Will, and yet they hardly did anything more than kiss deeply.  He was more than willing to keep pushing, to pick up where they left off that night when they’d fought, but when things started getting hot, soft touches lingering for too long and impatient grabs clutching too hard, Hannibal would pull away with a patient smile, making an excuse to have to cut things short.  It was slightly maddening, seeing as half the time he could see Hannibal’s tightened pants as he walked away. It was like the doctor was waiting for something, some sort of symbolic green light to get it on.  Which was half the reason Will agreed to go out in the first place, wondering if a night on the town would get Hannibal’s blood pumping enough lift the prohibition on all things sexual.

Hannibal was in the shower as Will looked at his reflection, running a hand through his lightly styled hair.  He had wanted to join him in the shower, but with the unspoken ban on sexual touching he figured it wouldn’t have been much appreciated.  Which was somewhat disconcerting.  He wanted to feel wanted, devoured the way he felt that last night.  Hannibal had been so animalistic, so raw and devastatingly human in their intimacy.  Will had anxiously looked forward to the next time he could get him naked, but every time he tried he was politely and lovingly brushed off.  Now Will wondered what Hannibal’s plans were for them at all, if he’d somehow misread things, or if Hannibal had just lost interest.

Will finished dressing and went downstairs to wait for Hannibal.  He poured himself a whiskey as he waited, running a hand nervously over the day-old shadow dusting his chin.  After getting out of the shower, he had gone to shave for the evening, but Hannibal had stopped him, mentioning how incredibly alluring he found the scruff.  Hannibal’s hands had lingered on his own for a few extra seconds, his thin lips hovering just a touch away from the back of his neck.  Hannibal’s eyes followed the goosebumps that spread over his shoulders, and with a smirk he’d walked past him, to stand before the shower and start to disrobe.  Will watched through the mirror as Hannibal got naked and climbed into the steaming water, holding himself back from throwing off his own towel and shoving Hannibal against glass wall.  But he resisted, knowing full well that if Hannibal had wanted him to follow he would have indicated. Head buzzing, he had left the bathroom to get dressed.  

Hearing footsteps on the staircase, he turned around to watch Hannibal enter the room, wearing a crisp salmon button up under a deep black vest and jacket, an intricately patterned tie matching a folded pocket square.  His hair was combed smartly to the side, and his clean, woodsy cologne wafted by Will as he approached.  Will’s eyes were wide on him, momentarily overwhelmed by how immediately familiar and appealing he found Hannibal in a suit.  The last few days had been silk pajamas under long, warm robes, soft sweaters, or button ups with rolled up sleeves and unbuttoned collars.  Will squeezed the glass in his hand, eyes landing on the smooth curve of Hannibal’s bottom lip.

“Ready to go?” Hannibal asked, clearly noting the effect he had on Will.

Will looked back up to meet his gaze, nodding after a moment.

“Oh, I nearly forgot,” Hannibal said, rounding the corner of the island counter, to retrieve a small package from a bag by the sink.  “I picked these up while I was out this morning.”

He returned to Will’s side, handing it to him. Will recognized what the long, flat box held immediately. He opened the case, pulling out the thick frames with rounded lenses.  He slid on the glasses, looking up with clearer vision at Hannibal.

“And you just happened to know my prescription?” He asked.

Hannibal tilted his head, a smile pulling at his lips. “It was once my job to know everything about you.”

Will squinted his eyes. “That’s really not the job description for a psychiatrist.”

Hannibal’s smile deepened. “Regardless, our reservations are for eight, so we should be going.”

* * *

The restaurant was just as Will imaged, crowded with turned-up noses, dim chandelier and candle light bouncing off loud jewelry and silverware. Will sat at the white table cloth, clenching his teeth and trying to contain his growing rage.

“Will, I don’t know what that roll has done to you, but I doubt it deserves to be so mercilessly abused,” Hannibal mused, lifting the glass of wine to his lips.

Will looked down to see the chunks of squeezed and torn apart bread, crumbs littering his small plate.  He plopped down the few shards in hand, reaching for his own glass impatiently.

The second the bow-tied waiter had come for their drink order, he’d barked for a bourbon, neat, without looking up at the older gentleman.  Hannibal had raised an eyebrow in amusement, before ordering what was likely the most expensive bottle on the menu.

“Will, please don’t let one appalling encounter ruin our evening,” Hannibal requested, looking up from the menu, noting the glare still perched on Will’s face.

Will tilted his head. “I was actually considering letting our new friend improve the evening.” He didn’t look up from the menu as he spoke.

Hannibal’s eyes glowed in the dim light, and he set the leather bound pamphlet aside.

"Oh?  And what of your scruples protecting innocence?”

Will looked up to meet Hannibal’s gaze across the low burning candle, his eyes nearly black.

“That man was not innocent.  I could practically smell it on him.  You had to have noticed it.”

Hannibal nodded. “His behavior was undeniably indicative of past violence.” 

“And after what he said to you, to us. It’s clearly a certain type of proclivity he targets.”

Will felt his blood rushing just thinking about it, imagining all the other people the stranger must have harassed, hurt, even killed.  The overweight man, probably in his late twenties, had stood beside his car in the parking lot, loudly spewing a slew of unintelligent garbage and threats, after watching them share a brief kiss upon exiting their car.  Hannibal had looked up with raised eyebrows, almost amused, but Will was much more directly affected. He had already started moving with deadly focus towards the car when Hannibal’s hand grabbed his arm.

When Hannibal finally coaxed him to walk away, the stranger had called after them, promising to kill them the next time. He then threw a half-full can, which exploded on the ground in front of them, splashing sticky red liquid across the bottoms of both Hannibal’s nice pants. He proceeded to walk off in the other direction, sauntering into some bar on the other side of the parking garage.

“Will,” Hannibal’s voice pulled him back to the present.

Will’s eyes focused on Hannibal’s features, softened in the warm ambiance. He felt calmer, but not by much.

“Have you before been the victim of bullies?” Hannibal asked.

Will laughed grimly. “Besides you?”

Hannibal frowned and tented an eyebrow, waiting for Will to answer.

Will sighed. “Grade school kids are vicious towards anyone on the spectrum.  Teenagers worse so…Particularly against those that aren’t lucky enough to be straight.”  He added sarcastically, taking a long pull from his drink.

Hannibal’s lips pursed. “You were openly queer in high school?” He asked, trying to image a teenage Will holding the hand of another young man. 

He’d never really thought about who Will was before their paths were brought together, it never seemed to matter.  He knew he switched schools a lot, following his father from boat yard to boat yard.  But never considered the intricacies deeper than the generic connation of ‘new kid’.  But now, watching his feathers ruffle so intensely, he wanted to know every cruel word that come to shape him.

Before Will could answer, their waiter returned to refresh half empty glasses of water.  When he asked for their dinner order, Hannibal had responded with some quick French.  Will was too flustered to admit he wasn’t able to read anything on the menu, so he asked for the same as Hannibal.   The waiter took their menus and left.

“I wasn’t,” Will answered him, running both hands over his face in tired frustration. “But I had a friend, briefly, who was targeted for who he was.”

 He paused, thinking about Hannibal’s question. “Are you really asking about my formative years? Slipping into old habits, doctor?”

“I can’t be interested in your past without having psychiatric intention? I’m simple curious about your shaping, Will.” Hannibal said, causing Will to snort.

“ _You_ were my shaping.”

“I came to a set table. I may have indulged in what was presented, but I didn’t prepare the feast.”

“And you believe someone else did?  Are you resentful of another chef in the kitchen?”

Hannibal tilted his head. “The entirety of who you are cannot be orchestrated, by myself or anyone else.  However, the world around us offers the brick and mortar of the self.  Our realities, our peers, provide reflections.  In them we recognize or reject, building identity.”

“Are you manufactured by these reflections?  A product of comparisons?”

Hannibal paused, mind wandering back to a childhood in long, stone hallways and wide courtyards, stern faces and empty forests. A gentle sister exploring their world by his side, crying at wounded animals and harsh parents.

“I once was,” Hannibal said thoughtfully, “As a child I saw much of myself in my sister, and through our few, stark dissimilarities I came to know myself.”

Will was quiet, trying to imagine what Hannibal was like as a child. Hannibal also remained silent, seemingly lost in his own reflections. Their meals came shortly after, and the lull in conversation was broken only by the occasional sliding of knife, clinking of glass.

“Evan Lester.” Will finally spoke, placing his fork down. “He was the only one who would talk to me, the one year I spent at that school. They were cruel to him, and to me.  Over that we bonded,” Will said, his gaze low. “But where I kept my head down, ignoring what I could, he was unapologetically loud in his retaliations. He defiantly rubbed exactly what they hated in their faces, inviting onslaughts of insults and beatings for months.” 

Hannibal put down his fork and knife, eyes fixed on Will.  Imagining him as a teenager, imagining his outspoken friend. 

“And for months I kept my mouth shut.  Never said a word to them, or to anyone who could stop them. Then one day he took it too far, and they took it further.” Will paused to finish off his glass.

“He died in the hospital a few days later.  And I never did anything about. I was rendered inactive under their glare of hate. Investigations came and went, the funeral came and went, and all of us were back in school by the end of the year. Like nothing happened. That summer my father took us far from it all.  I never went back.”

“Would you exact revenge now, if you could?” Hannibal asked after a few moments of consideration.

Will met Hannibal’s gaze unblinking. “With righteous fury.”

 Hannibal raised his glass to his face, offering a pleasant smile over its rim. “Then we start tonight.”  

* * *

Will detested hunting; it was one of the first things that he found repulsive about Garrett Jacob Hobbs. He found the idea of stalking a pray, disturbing defenseless serenity out in the wilderness off-putting.  He much preferred fishing, as fish were nearly brainless creatures, barely having sentience. They were practically indifferent to being killed, their fear response microscopic to those of mammals.

But _this._ This, he reasoned, wasn’t hunting.  His prey wasn’t innocent, didn’t fit into any natural, peaceful order.  He recalled a tense conversation he’d had with Abigail where he’d asked her if she hunted or lured, when he’d first learned of her involvement in her father’s crimes.  This was different than those crimes.  He wasn’t luring young, beautiful women to their deaths, just one ugly, violent, hateful man.  This wasn’t murder, it was extermination. And as he and Hannibal stood in shadows by the car belonging to the man who had threatened them earlier, he felt akin to his lost daughter, heart hammering, set up as live bait.

A group of men stumbled out of the bar together, and Will easily found his target in the crowd, shuffling in their direction.  As he neared, passing under the wide shadow of the parking garage, out of sight from the street, Hannibal turned to face Will.  He met darkly glowing eyes, sharp with deadly determination. He moved closer, raised a hand to his neck and roughly pulled him into a kiss, teeth pulling and hands grabbing, as was planned.  Will grunted in response to Hannibal’s force, blood rushing faster as he felt the fire burning in Hannibal.  This was what Hannibal did, practiced the skill to an art form.  And finally, here they were, out on the hunt together.

 Their kiss was cut short by anticipated, unintelligent jeering.

“What the fuck did I tell you cocksuckers?”  The man was just a few yard away now, rounding his car, already clicking open a pocket knife. 

Hannibal pulled his face only inches away from Will, ignoring the approaching man, eyes roaming, drinking in the viciousness he saw hardening across Will’s features. Hannibal’s expression was one of pride as he smoothly stepped back, leaving the rest up to Will.

Will swiftly ducked under an incoming swipe of knife towards his face, landing a forceful punch to the man’s wide gut.  With him sprawling backwards, Will quickly grabbed the wrist holding the knife, twisting it around his back and slamming him down onto his car roof.  He had the knife from his hand almost immediately, turning its bite towards the man’s neck.

“What were their names?” Will snarled, a cold control coming over him.

The man squirmed, panting, and tried to ask who, but Will tightened the twist in his wrist, causing the man to call out in pain.

“What were names of the people you’ve killed?” Will demanded, pressing the knife deeper into the man’s neck, slicing a thin line.  A trickle of blood flowed down his neck, soaking into his shirt’s collar.

“I-I don’t know.  I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” the man whined.

“I really wouldn’t lie to me right now,” Will advised, tone frigid.

 “Dude, I never killed anybody!” Will could hear the lie behind the panic.

With the right twist of pressure, he easily shattered the man’s wrist, eliciting an animalistic howl.  He then grabbed his shoulder, and whipped him around to face Will. Will’s stony stare met glossy, hallow eyes, sunken in.  The man’s face and neck were covered in thin patches of curling hair growing in random places, and his breath smelled like stale beer and un-brushed teeth.  Will’s lip curled in disgust, and he placed the blade back against his neck, cutting into the same spot. This time the blood trailed down onto Will’s fingers, looping down his wrist.

“I’ll give you one last chance for honesty,” Will sounded almost patient, but Hannibal noted with adoration the dark sea grumbling under his words. “If you lie again, my _lover_ here will rip you apart. Something he’s particularly skilled at.”

The man’s wide eyes moved from Will to Hannibal, who stood a few feet behind them, jacket folded over his arm and an entertained expression resting over his face.  As if he were watching one of the greatest performances of all time.  The man’s upper lip curled at his fancy dress, modest hair swept to the side.  He wasn’t afraid of two fairies, especially the other one who looked like a librarian.

“Fine.  Fine,” He looked back to Will, who pulled back the blade only slightly.  “I did, ok? She was fucked up, man; a fucking cunt.  She turned me down for some fucking black bitch.”

Will took a slow step backwards, face carved from stone, leaving a foot or so between them. The man mistook it for him backing down.  It encouraged him to become braver, stupider. He straightened his back, cradling his broken wrist.

 “I took care of them. I deserve a fucking metal! Cleaned the world of two more ugly-ass fags. They deserved it. And so do you two.”

Will’s jaw set. “What were their names?” He demanded eyes so black they looked unfocused.

The man rolled his eyes, “What the fuck does that matter?  You’re too much of a goddamn pussy to do anything.  You could have killed me but you didn’t, ‘cause you’re just a feminine little bitch.”

Busy in his own bravado of narrow intolerance, he didn’t see Will’s fingers carefully rearranging themselves on the handle, the squaring of his shoulders.  From behind, Hannibal’s eyes traveled down the tensing muscles he could see shifting under the shirt, and then flicked to his hand, watching the tightening grip.  The shadow of a smile ghosted over Hannibal’s lips and reached his eyes, excitement burning low.  They both waited.

 “Her name was Jackie.  Jackie Hall.” The man spit finally, when he realized Will wouldn’t respond until he got his answer. “And I don’t fucking know the name of that ni-”

The man never got to finish his sentence.

An animalistic pounce, a blur, an upward force. The deadly accuracy of a swinging blade.  A tearing, a splitting open and spray of glowing red, a growl and more feverish pushing.  The hunter losing himself, vision blurring, alive in the heat pouring over him.  Then the prey, neck torn open, sliding empty and slowly to the asphalt. One hand reaching up to the open, gurgling gash, a last attempt at catching the sputtering stream, eyes wide but fluttering.

Blood had splattered across Will’s face, coating his glasses, seeping between his lips.  He tasted the salty copper on his own teeth.  It soaked wide stains into Hannibal’s once crisp button-up, now drenched in sweat.   His vision returned slowly as he huffed ragged breaths, the tight tension leaving his muscles.  Coming back to his body, he looked down at the man bleeding out at his feet, his own victim. 

He closed his eyes and immediately his imagination played the scene of an unknown woman, Jackie, with her girlfriend, running.  Their panic, their pain. She had recognized him, they begged.  But were viciously slain anyway, and their last moments were that of terror.  Will opened his eyes, took in the pooling around his black, shining shoes. His thoughts moved seamlessly to the boy from his high school, fighting for his life, dying at the hands of men like this one.  His stomach curdled around the image.   

Hannibal stepped forward, sensing Will’s spiraling thoughts.  He pressed his chest to Will’s back, looking appreciatively over his shoulder at the carnage.  He turned his head to gaze at Will, whose expression remained dark, fathomless.  He leaned in to place a delicate, reverent brush of lips against the side of his head, where sweaty curls clung to neck.

* * *

Alana Bloom sat in her office, hair pulled back in a loose pony tail, accompanied only by plumes of steam swirling up from her morning tea.  She had a few appointments before noon, but a news article had halted her routine of skimming headlines.  She leaned with both elbows on her polished wood desk, reading and re-reading the article on her tablet, dark red lips pursed. Her heart racing at each word, eyes blurring at the accompanying picture accompanying.

> Maine Man Found Dead and Mutilated in His Car
> 
> "The body of local grocery store employee, Jeffery Reign, 29, was found early Tuesday morning, in his 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer, parked outside the city’s most frequented gay dance club _Pixie’s_.   Club owner Jamie Sky found the body, before promptly alerting the authorities. The scene she discovered was a graphic one; readers be advised. Morris County’s Police Department have announced Reign’s cause of death was a deep slice to the neck, and blood evidence places the act to have taken place elsewhere.
> 
> The body was staged: his own erect genitals cut off and placed into his mouth.  Across his chest the words “Jackie Hall” were carved, and it has been reported that both kidneys are missing from the body.  While MCPD haven’t commented on the victim’s possible link to the double homicide earlier this year of Jackie Hall and Rebecca Fowler, it is speculated that this could be the man responsible for their murders."

Alana felt dizzy, mouth dry, heart hammering.  Somehow she recognized the brutality, something familiar in the scene, in the violence.  She stared down at the graphic picture, proof of her darkest nightmare.  That she and her family came out of hiding too soon.  That Hannibal Lecter was still alive.


	9. Chapter 9

> “Urge and urge and urge
> 
> Always the procreant urge of the world.”
> 
>       Walt Whitman, _Song of Myself_ , lines 44-5.

 

The moment they’d crossed the threshold into the cabin, Will had Hannibal shoved against the front door.  Hands massaging waist, tongue pushing into Hannibal’s mouth, hips grinding forward.  Adrenaline still pumped violently in his veins, the blank need for Hannibal’s body swarming his thoughts.  It had been a week since so much as a southward grope, and Will was done waiting.  Hannibal could taste it in him, feel it in the impatient bites at lip, the nails scratching into his neck.  Hear it in the low moans each time Hannibal tugged on his hair, pressed his tongue flat into Will’s, breathed gasps into his mouth.

Will’s nimble, bloodstained fingers had gotten Hannibal’s vest opened already, and were half way down his shirt’s buttons when Hannibal pulled his head back, and raised his hands to Will’s.  Will growled in annoyance, tried to chase his mouth but met an upturned chin.  He sunk his teeth impatiently into the skin his lips met, before leaning back enough to meet Hannibal’s unreadable expression.

“Is there a problem?” He husked darkly. 

  A shadow of hesitation passed over Hannibal, a wavering look of regret.

“You should shower,” Hannibal offered, voice in a broken whisper, hand raising to cheek, brushing at a dark smear.

Will lifted one brow, “I thought you liked your protégés covered in blood.” The taunt was a shade too hard for flirtation.

Hannibal’s frown deepened. “You are not simply my pupil, Will.”

He pulled out of Will’s grasp, stalking away up the stairs.  Will stood alone in bewilderment, frustration blooming in his chest.  Back to the game.  The teasing, the pushing and then the bottomless release, the abandonment. Will shuttered thinking of the word.  He had not come all this way, followed Hannibal into his world of darkness, to be left alone.

Hardening his pride, he wandered to the kitchen to pour himself a drink, not wanting to give Hannibal the satisfaction of a chase.  He had chased him enough already.  If Hannibal didn’t want him in his life, in his bed, then fine. 

Well, no, not fine.  The very idea shook him to his core.  Beyond giving up his entire life, everything he knew, to be with Hannibal, there was the slight concern of budding sexuality.  Hannibal was the first man he’d actively desired, the first time he considered himself anything but straight.  His whole life he’d found it hard to grow attached or attracted to anyone.  He could name on one hand the number of people he’d slept with, which included a traumatized lesbian after his sperm.  He hadn’t even known he wanted Hannibal in that way for a long time.  The occasional stabs of lust would wash over him since their relationship began, and he’d always chalked it up to the intimacy of their intellectual connection.  He’d never met anyone like Hannibal, who spoke like him, thought and killed with such grace it elevated his existence to art. 

Standing in the kitchen, Will downed his second glass, sorting through the cacophony of memories that brought him to this moment.  The spare dreams where he woke up drenched in sweat, fully hard, waking from images of those thin lips on his.  He would lay awake in the dark, still feeling the phantom warmth on his skin, Hannibal’s strong arms around him, Hannibal’s covering body shoving him into a mattress.   He remembered that pivotal moment in Bedelia’s office, the ringing behind his eyes, the surge of heat through his veins, when he’d first learned Hannibal’s love for him. When he first saw their bond in a new light.  He had had Molly then, and prior to that moment any images of homoromanticism had been flushed grey in the background.  But that moment rung in his mind loud as church bells. His errant pangs of desire, his growing need to be closer, to feel, to explore and to take, they had all suddenly found root, in Hannibal’s equal desire for him.  The complexity of their relationship, their connection seemed to breach all boundaries, all definition. 

After his fourth finger of whiskey, hastily downed as he leaned against the counter, he heard the spray of shower coming from upstairs.  His thoughts were already feeling loose from the drinks, and liquid courage pushed the need to talk, to fight, to end whatever this was if it would come to that.  They were at a stalemate that rubbed against his skin like sandpaper, digging dusty holes into his gut.  He wouldn’t be ignored, brushed aside.  If Hannibal didn’t want him, was backing out, or was never interested in pushing on this boundary, then Will had the right to know.

Determination set in his brow, he climbed the stairs, crossing through the master bedroom, pausing to look towards the bed.  Remembering the one night they’d shared of passion, how he’d twisted in the sheets under Hannibal’s mouth.  Their clothes thrown without thought around the room, silent gasps and reverent moans swirling in the dark. Anger gurgled below his surface; how could Hannibal give him that one night, and nothing more?  He’d raked desperate fingers across Will’s chest, sobbed into kisses, growled against his skin.  There was such hunger in those memories, such devotion and oneness.   Was it an act?  Another person suit he slid into, just for the sake of carnal pleasure?  The idea made Will feel slightly nauseated. And yet here they were, another night, a room apart. Will hated the rejection glowing hot under his anger.   

“Hannibal!” Will called.

He was responded to only by slaps of water against glass.  Will crossed the room pointedly, shouldering open the bathroom door.  The room was blanketed in damp steam, and when his eyes landed on Hannibal across bright white marble and tile, behind a fogged up glass shower door, Will’s determination pulled backwards. 

Hannibal’s eyes were closed, his face contorted in an almost pained expression, his mouth hung slightly open.  Behind the fog Will could make out his hand on himself, moving rhythmically up and down.  Hannibal slid his eyes open, and slowed his hand until he removed it all together.  He turned his gaze to Will, eyes already reading all he could from Will’s frozen expression.

“Will.  I was wondering if you’d be joining me,” He told him, voice a touch too rough to be conversational.

Will took the challenge, crossing the room within seconds.  Sensuality, a gentle give and take, had evaporated from his movements.  He was under the spray within seconds, fully clothed, resuming his possessive position from earlier, crowding Hannibal.  The tiles stung cold against Hannibal’s burning back, steaming water drooling all over him, Will suddenly and forcefully pressing against him. 

Water soaked his green shirt black, the fabric clinging to Will’s skin.  His hands grabbed rough, gripping merciless into Hannibal’s sides, his mouth bypassing any kissing to go straight to hard biting at his neck.  Hannibal’s harsh groans floating around his head, making concentration wildly obsolete.  Will grasped violently against bare skin, hands lower to Hannibal’s bare ass, clutching fistfuls and massaging his palms. Will shoved, grinded his fully clothed lap into Hannibal’s aching, naked cock, pulling graceful moans from a long, swallowing throat. The dampness of their breath mingled in the heat of the air between them, Hannibal’s gasps in his ear driving him nearly insane.

“Tell me you want this,” Will gritted, teeth dragging over Hannibal’s pulse.

“Yes,” Hannibal struggled to form the word. 

Will’s movements seemed to deflate, moving from vicious to cautious. His grinding slowed, hunger burning behind hesitation. He clutched at Hannibal’s waist, his chest, his shoulders.

“Then take me, Hannibal. Please. I’ve spent too many nights without you. Don’t- Don’t leave,” Desperation stung against his eyes, a need so furious hung in such a delicate balance.

Hannibal slowed as well, raising both hands to grip the sides of his face.

“You believe I could leave?” He asked, trails of water dripping from his lips.

Will only closed his eyes, holding back stray tears.  He couldn’t face this, he needed too much for coherent thought.

“Will,” It was a crumpled prayer.

They were still, clutching each other under the unceasing spray of water.

“You won’t touch me,” Will’s words escaped in a strangled whisper before he could stop them, longing and pastel shame wrapping itself around each syllable.

Will waited for Hannibal’s response.  Hannibal watched the contours of desperation he had laid in Will’s expression, eyes roaming over tears indistinguishable from shower.  He observed with an expanding heart, the weakness, the longing, the unsheltered.   And he craved.

His lips found Will’s, so softy, so innocently, giving more than he believed possible.  Each drag of lip a reverent offering, a holy taking.  Opening and closing, sucking, pulling. Breath melding into breath. Heart beating against heart.  The boiling heat simmered to cooled drags of skin, fingertips glossing over lengths of arm, chest, shoulder.  The occasional hand drifting to grip against either hardness, palm lingering, pulling over pulsing silky heat.

As if in a trance, Hannibal slid the soaking clothes from Will’s body. Starting with the ruined shirt, he pulled the cloth from taunt skin, running his lips over what he exposed. He lowered his hands, opened pants buttons, stooping to slide them off of Will.  Soon they were both equally naked, Hannibal remained on his knees, hands skimming over all he could, memorizing each hard line in hip, thigh, leg, roaming marble statue.  Will felt the veneration in each slide, felt praised, worshiped, wanted.

 Hannibal stood slowly, dragging his lip up Will’s center, letting his bottom lip catch along Will’s lower stomach, the long scar he’d left there long ago. Then up his chest, pulling off at the shoulder. Will watched with rounded eyes, never having seen Hannibal so vulnerable, never having been savored in this way.  Not recalling a time when he’d seen anyone so gentle.

Without a word, Hannibal reached to the wide shelf on the farthest wall.  He pooled gel smelling of fresh mint into his palm, then reached out to run slick fingers over Will’s scalp. Rubbing firm circles, he lathered thick suds into Will’s curls.  Will closed his eyes, melting into the massage, letting himself be guided under the water.  Hannibal’s ministrations traveled down his neck, pushing muddied, red suds from his hair.  He slid soapy hands over and down his shoulders, scrubbing away the events of the night, turning Will to knead into the muscles of his back. Will fell into a daze, focusing on Hannibal’s prodding fingers and palm, the soothing heat pouring over them, the refreshing smells and clean skin.

 All too soon, the water ceased, and Hannibal was already pushing open the shower door.  He left Will to retrieve large, soft towels. Returning, he wrapped the fluffy cloth around Will, and they stood face to face, soft light shining off bright marble around them.  With one towel around his own waist, water still sliding down his back, he raised the cloth to ruffle into Will’s wet hair, to slide around neck, rub down shoulders. 

Without raising his eyes from the towel running over skin Hannibal finally spoke.

“Did you kill tonight for me?”  He sounded like he didn’t like asking.

Will thought back to his rage, to the high, the power he felt. 

“Would that be so bad?” He asked.

“That’s not an answer, Will.”  Still looking down.

Will couldn’t guess at the source of his quiet frustration, but relented. “No. I acted entirely out of self-interest tonight.”

Hannibal nodded, sinking to his knees before Will to run a new, dry towel up his legs. When he didn’t speak again, Will sighed.

“Why does it matter why?”

Hannibal remained so quiet Will wasn’t sure he was going to get an answer. He continued to move the towel over Will’s thigh, then down his calves, around his ankles.  Finally he looked up, pausing his movements, leaning back on his heels.

“It has taken our mutual deaths for our relationship to surmount my past manipulations. In our rebirths, I’ve promised to never ask for anything you couldn’t easily give. If I falter in this, it gives grounds for you to foster resentment.” He paused only for a beat before continuing. “I’m no longer looking for form you, Will. I don’t want you to believe I have an agenda.”

Will’s hands found Hannibal’s jaw, gently pulling him upwards.  Hannibal obeyed, rising to stand.  Will reached down and pulled the towel from Hannibal’s hand, raising it all the way up, to land on Hannibal’s head.  He pushed it back, revealing his face, rustling it over Hannibal’s hair.

“I’m no longer so susceptible to your persuasion, Dr. Lecter,” he mused, watching the fine hair stand up in random directions, moving the towel down to his neck. “Moreover, I trust you.  And I trust whatever our future holds to be genuine. God only knows why.” He added with a sideways smile.

Hannibal lowered his eyes to Will’s mouth, watching his grin, watching his tongue dart out to wet his lips.

 “I killed tonight because that man deserved to die.  And I deserved to kill him.”

Heart expanding, Hannibal lowered his head. He hovered his lips above Will’s, waiting for him to bridge the distance. Will leaned in, brushing only for a second before pulling back only a breath, mirroring Hannibal’s tease.  Hannibal didn’t take well to that, pushing him backwards, crashing into the kiss.  They stumbled into the countertop, where Hannibal had Will neatly pinned.  Will’s arms locked around his neck, dropping the towel and clutching at wet hair.  His mouth opened hungrily for Hannibal, inviting his hot tongue.

“You were magnificent tonight,” Hannibal broke the kiss to growl his praises. “Absolutely radiant.”

Will whined, lips already recaptured. Hannibal crowded him, blanketing over his thoughts, surrounding him entirely.  Mouth opening around his tongue, teeth pulling at his bottom lip, mind spinning at each deep grind, pinning him against the counter.  Each catch of Hannibal’s warm, damp skin over Will’s cock got him fuller and fuller, Hannibal not too far behind.

“Fuck me, Hannibal.  Please,” he breathed into his mouth.

Hannibal pulled out of the kiss placing his forehead to rest against Will’s.  He swallowed hard, catching his breath.

“Will.  I’m unsure if we- if you are-,”

“We should,” Will interrupted. “And I am. I want it, Hannibal. I want you.”

To emphasis, he lowered his hand to Hannibal’s length, and this time he wasn’t stopped.  Hannibal only closed his eyes, hummed low, catching on fire as Will’s palm met the silky skin of his erection.

“Will, you’ve never done this before.” Hannibal’s words wavered.

“Before you I hadn’t done a lot of things,” Will responded with a lightheartedness that promptly dropped when he noticed Hannibal’s tight expression.  

 He slowed his suggestive palming then pulled his hand away, reaching up instead to let both hands land on Hannibal’s chest.  Hannibal kept his eyes closed, frown perched on his lips.

“What does it matter that I’m new to this?”

Hannibal sighed.

 “You may not…find it as pleasurable as you’re anticipating.” He spoke grimly, new to the uncomfortable tinge of resignation.

Will’s brow furrowed. “You’re worried you won’t perform well?”

Hannibal’s tense expression broke into a smile accompanied by a soft chuckle. “No.  I’m quite confident in my sexual competence, thank you, Will.”

Will returned the smile, hands dropping to casually grip onto the counter on either side behind him. “Then what is it?  I find it hard to believe that the most surprising thing about this entire situation is your reluctance. I’m the one offering up my virginity here.”

“This is where I find issue.”

“So you’re worried _I_ won’t perform well?” Will asked with a raised eyebrow, trying to coax another smile from Hannibal.

Hannibal sighed, but this time less heavy.  He raised a hand to push some damp curls from Will’s forehead. Will studied his face, observed the apprehension in his eyes.  In the look, Will came to understand, realization breaking over him.

“You fear rejection,” he spoke barely over a whisper, not wanting to push Hannibal too far in speaking his distress out loud.  

Hannibal broke their eye contact to look down, inwardly disapproving of Will’s word choice.  ‘Fear’ not having been part of his vocabulary since he was a young child.

“You’ve been heterosexual you’re whole life, Will.  There’s no guarantee this won’t terminate any of your sudden homoerotic interest.”

Will shook his head as Hannibal spoke, scrambling for the right words to explain just how unfounded these anxieties were.

“Look, Hannibal.  I may not know all the gritty details you can only gain from firsthand experience, but I’m not new to sex.  Or to desire.” His look darkened.  “I know what lust feels like, and I can _guarantee_ that I am sure of how much I want this.  I’m yours; I know that more than anything. Now,” Wil shoved against Hannibal, pinning himself against his lean body, walking him back a few steps. His mouth hovered only a breath away from Hannibal’s ear. “No more holding back.” He punctuated his order with a wet kiss sucked onto the sensitive skin just below his ear.

 Hannibal locked his arms around Will’s lower back, turning his head to push against the side of Will’s. “I cannot assure even a modicum of self-control once we get started.”  His tone shifted to something low and sultry. Will felt his nerves sparking up his spine, knowing he won.


	10. Chapter 10

>  
> 
> “…There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad.”   
>           Homer,  _The Iliad_

He was too absorbed in excitement, waiting to see what Hannibal would do next, what was to be released onto him, that it took him a moment to realize Hannibal was waiting for a response, some kind of sign that he registered the warning.  When he did, he nodded eagerly, hungrily consenting to any amount of unleashing Hannibal required.

The next few seconds passed in a blur of forceful hands shoving against him as Hannibal’s rough mouth landed back on Will’s.  He was guided backwards, stumbling into the dark bedroom, until soft sheets were at his back, head knocking against pillow.  A beam of light fell across the bed from the open bathroom door, and in the glowing dark Hannibal was on him like a jungle cat on prey, long body covering, smothering.  Finesse replaced with raw hunger, grinding his hips against Will’s, mouth never leaving his. Will could hardly breath, drowning in gripping limbs and snapping snarls. He kissed back where he could, pressing his own slick tongue against Hannibal’s sharp teeth, opening his mouth for him.  He was growing magnificently hard, groaning each time Hannibal’s length slid against his.  Which was becoming more and more repetitive, and his thoughts glowed hot each time he raised his hips to meet Hannibal’s.  He was already dangerously close, leaking pre-cum to mingle with Hannibal’s.

When Hannibal noted Will’s gasps coming a touch too fast, he leaned up to remove his weight, bracing over himself on either side of Will’s body.  They both panted, arousal deep in their bellies, eyelids heavy with desire.   He leaned down to steal one last kiss before pulling back completely, gracefully crawling off the bed.  He flicked on the bedside light, bathing the room in a warm golden glow, before disappearing into the bathroom.  Anticipation tingled in Will’s gut for whatever Hannibal was retrieving, whatever he had planned.  He felt mildly lightheaded thinking about what the evening could hold, what he was prepared to give to Hannibal. Like everything about them, it seemed inevitable and slightly unimaginable.

Hannibal’s approaching footfall pulled Will out of his thought.  He had switched off the bathroom light, and Will leaned up on an elbow to watch the man cross to stand beside the bed, carrying a sloping glass vase, intricate design lacing around its bottom with an elegant, thin silver cap at its top.   Will studied it and the clear liquid inside.

“Tell me you keep your lube in a fancy soap dispenser?”

Hannibal paused, lips pursed. “This is custom designed Baccarat crystal, Will.”

Will raised his eyebrows, recognizing the brand name only distantly. He assumed it was something expensive and European.  He couldn’t keep the smile from spreading across his face, feeling a giddiness in his upper chest blossoming just from looking at the object.  It was just so _Hannibal_.  The guy couldn’t just keep his lube in plastic bottles like everyone else. He thought back to his half-empty tube of discount Trojan’s he kept in the bottom drawer of his dresser at home, glad that that was never brought to Hannibal’s attention.

“I’m getting the royal treatment, I see.”

Hannibal looked up from under a curtain of bangs and stared at him.

“You know, Will,” he started, choosing his words carefully. “Because this is so new to you, it may be beneficent for you…to be the pitcher rather than catcher, as it were.”

Will quirked an eyebrow. “Did you just use a sports metaphor in reference to me fucking you?”

Hannibal smirked but remained quiet, waiting for Will to respond. Will shook his head no.

“There’s no way, Hannibal.”

“Just consider it-”

Will got up on his knees and shuffled over fluffy comforter to meet Hannibal, slinging both arms to lean on Hannibal’s shoulder.

“There’s no way, Hannibal,” he repeated, this time his voice low and husky. “Because you’ve wanted to get inside me since we’ve met.”

Will’s hot breath against his ear sent a delicate shutter down Hannibal.

“You sunk your fingers into my mind over and over until I was yours.  Shoved that silky voice into my thoughts ‘til my inner voice sounded like you. You’ve penetrated me, Hannibal, with blades, laying claim and scars all over me.  This is your final manner of getting in. You conquered me emotionally, spiritually, physically.  Now take me sexually.”  He ended his last words with a growl, a bite against Hannibal’s ear.

Will pulled back to see the effect he was having on Hannibal, and glowed with pride to see the man’s eyes closed, jaw tight.  Hannibal slid his eyes open, pupils blown wide.  His heart had expanded in his chest as Will spoke, feeling so utterly known.  Laid naked before Will, his most inner desires raw before him, like slabs of fine meat upon a pristine butcher’s block.  Waiting for Will to do whatever he wanted with him.  To lovingly tenderize, marinate, sauté, or to brutally hack apart and viciously roast. It was both freeing and terrifying.

“Then lay back, Will.  And put one of the pillows under your hips.  Then wait.”

Will noted the gravelly arousal rumbling behind the commands, and with nerve ends dancing, he did as he was told.  Laying with his body fully stretched out, pillow under him, he reached down and lazily stroked himself, hooded eyes watching Hannibal. Roaming up his lean body, eyes catching on taunt muscles, old scars, newly healing wounds.  His gaze traveled his arm, watching delicate fingers lift the silver lid, pulling up a long, delicately curved dipper. He coated his fingers, pooling a little extra into his palm.  Will’s eyes glazed watching the slick liquid slowly cover moving digits, chest growing hot as he imagined them entering him.  Anxiety pattered around in circles in his heart, but the fear was mostly drowned out by gurgling waves of thick desire.  He absently wondered at how long they’ve both waited for this, how much manipulation they’ve been through, how many lies, how much hatred, aching forgiveness, longing, chasing, searching.  It felt like an inevitable, crashing crescendo. The two of them alone in this warm light in the dead of night, safely together and apart from everyone else; this being everything his entire life accumulated to.

Will felt the bed dip beside him, and when his focus was brought back to the moment, Hannibal’s mouth was already on his, a warm, soft tug of lips.  Hannibal moved to blanket his body over him, waves of desire rolling off of him with each push of tongue, each slow grind downward.  Will’s skin sizzled where Hannibal’s mouth trailed, laying slick, reverent kisses in sacred rows anywhere wet lips met taunt skin. Will kept his eyes squeezed shut, mind on fire with each offering, desperate for more and praying it never would end. Hannibal’s ministrations moved lower, slotting himself between Will’s legs, kneeling before his young god.

Hannibal looked up at the pale skin stretching before him, bathed golden, strong hand still moving slow over a full erection, and his mouth watered.  His eyes landed on Will’s, which were gazing down at him through thick eyelashes.  He moved one hand to take Will’s heavy length from his hands, assuming the same ministration.  Will’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, finally having Hannibal’s slick fingers working over him.  He let out a breathy moan, pleasure flooding.

All too soon, Hannibal slowed his fist, traveling his hand further down, tantalizingly slow, dancing wet fingertips over tight skin, until finally the pad of his fingers rubbed against Will’s tight entrance.

 “This will be uncomfortable at first, Will.  Like I’ve advised once before, don’t run from the pain.  Embrace it, let it consume you.  The payout will be tenfold.”

Hannibal’s silky, thick accent floated around Will’s head, making it impossible for him to concentrate on anything.   That is, until Hannibal started slowly, torturously slowly, pushing one digit in; then Will saw stars.  Bright bursts of color behind his eyes, his muscles tightened and clenched around the probing finger, sliding slick in then out.  Will groaned low into the dark air, Hannibal panting below him, listening to the symphony of pleasure rising out of this magnificent creature. 

Pain shot through Will when Hannibal pushed in the second finger, the stretch burning almost unbearably.  But Will clenched his jaw, focusing on Hannibal’s scissoring fingers, his aching, untouched cock, how good it felt despite the pain.  When Hannibal crooked his fingers just right, Will’s eyes shot open and he arced his back.

“ _Hannibal_.” The moan dripped from his parted lips.

He began shoving down, taking as much as he could, desperate for each perfect rub, panting like a wounded dog, losing control of his movements.  Guided only by sheer need for more, chasing and groaning. By the third finger, he was clutching at the sheets, head pressing into pillow.

“You are so stunning like this, Will.” Hannibal praised, adoration saturating his voice.  His eyes were locked on Will’s withering body, sweat gliding over his skin.  Attraction lay heavy in his blood, skin feverish, need blazing under his skin.

He watched the muscles in Will’s stomach tighten, jaw clenching, saw him teetering so desperately close to the edge on his fingers alone, and so he quickly pulled out of Will completely, earning a nearly petulant moan.  Will had no time to voice his disapproval of the loss, as Hannibal’s body was already back over him, lips reclaiming lips, and Hannibal was lined up, wide head pressing against stretched hole.  Sliding slowly in, Hannibal buried his face in the crook of Will’s neck, grunting almost inaudible, sinking his teeth along sweat sweetened shoulders.  Will’s legs circled hips, and as he felt himself stretching around the impossible pushing thickness, his fingers dug into Hannibal’s back, breaking skin. His mouth hung open, a tight whine gurgling from the back of his throat.

Hannibal remained still for almost a touch too long, sunk entirely into Will, breathing in all the intricacies of Will’s skin; his dark, musky arousal, his salty sweat, and some particular smell that was so inherently Will, the intimate scent Hannibal would try to image in the Italian chapels of his mind palace while incarceration.  And now he had it all to himself, and every deep breath he pulled from Will’s skin was the most generous gift of fate he could think of.  Something rare, coveted for years, given so readily.

“A-are you…smelling me?” Will’s heavy voice questioned, with only a hint of disbelief. 

The question brought both their thought back to Hannibal’s varying comments on Will’s choice in aftershave, the exchanges feeling so distant they could have been from a different lifetime. Hannibal leaned up in order to offer Will a wide grin, knocking the air out of Will’s lungs.  

Instead of responding, Hannibal rolled his hips forward, pushing deep as possible, fluttering Will’s eyes and pulling a surprised groan from somewhere inside him. Hannibal pulled halfway out, only to shove back in with increased force.  He repeated the motion, slowly at first but quickly loosing whatever was holding him back. His thrusts became rough and forceful, slamming in over and over, gripping Will’s waist with strong, sure fingers. 

Will felt devoured, drowning in the pleasure, throat catching around gasping moans, body rocking up to meet Hannibal’s thrusts where he could. He was losing sense of anything tangible around him; everything became hot blurs, strips of sound and light. Muted colors moved behind squeeze shut eyelids, Hannibal’s growling pants and gasps surrounding him. The slick sliding in and out, the pounding of Hannibal’s hips meeting his, skin slapping, Hannibal pushing deeper and deeper, every few thrusts hitting that sweet spot and whiting his vision, dragging panted calls of Hannibal’s name.

He cracked open his eyes, which promptly widened.  Hannibal’s head thrown back, lips parted, a glorious expression etched into the lines of his face.  Warm light casting shadows over his ropes of taunt muscles, his statuesque skin glistening with sweat, wide chest heaving.  He felt slight tremors in the strong grip at his hips, and Will could swear he saw the glint of tears in the corners of Hannibal’s squeezed shut eyes.  He was being savored, and he felt his own heart clench around the thought.

_This is all I ever wanted for you, Will.  For both of us._

There were Hannibal’s words again in his head, floating hauntingly, beautifully.  His mind brought them back to Florence, to the first time he’d seen Hannibal again after he’d left.  After he’d forgiven him. He could still feel the glow in Hannibal’s eyes as they sat before Botticelli’s _Primavera_ , reconnecting, reattaching.

_If I saw you everyday forever, I would remember this time._

His heart had stuttered as Hannibal spoke the words. The romance and honesty too much for him to handle.  His mind’s eye moved seamlessly to the image of Hannibal kneeling in the snow back in Wolf Trap.

_I wanted you to know exactly where I am, and where you can always find me._

He had been so infuriated and so mesmerized at the same time.  It had taken every piece of him to try and detangle himself from Hannibal, to send Hannibal away like an unwanted dog. And then he saw him surrender, giving up his freedom, his most precious possession, just to prove his devotion, his inability to move on, his entire absorption into Will.

Bedelia’s distant voice and hesitant words floated by, reminding him once more of that fateful conversation. Reminding him of why Hannibal would surrender for him.

_Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for you, and find nourishment at the very sight of you?  Yes._

That yes, that resounding yes had echoed through his heart for years.  Soaked into his thoughts, into his marriage, haunted him in his dreams.  Yes, Hannibal was in love with him.  Hannibal ached for him, and against all his better judgement hungered for that connection. 

The next scene flooded his vision, returning him to that night on the forest floor, covered in blood and sweat, curled around Hannibal for the first time. When he told Hannibal he could see through his bars of plight. Hannibal’s gasp and response glowed hot in his mind.

_Do you plan, then, on eating my burning heart?_

It was an offering.  It was always an offering. Of himself, fully and honestly, on a golden plate placed at Will’s feet.  Proving Will had taken over Hannibal as wondrously, as disastrously, as the other man had Will.

Will felt his own press of hot tears behind his eyes, and within seconds he shifted his weight, pushed upward and rolled them.  A surprised gasp escaped Hannibal as he landed on his back, Will now straddling him, rolling his hips hungrily downward, new angle hitting perfectly each drag of hip.  He reached out until his palms cradled Hannibal’s neck, and he pulled gently until Hannibal leaned up, their foreheads touching, Hannibal supporting himself with two arms extended behind him.  Will continued his hold on Hannibal’s jaw with both hands, riding him with brutal precision, pulling loose, breathless moans from Hannibal, who was quickly falling apart, surrendering himself to Will’s hungry grinds.

He leaned forward, kissing him hungrily, open mouth melting around prodding tongue, sucking and gasping into the kiss.  Still leaning up, Hannibal arms came around him, circling his back, pulling him impossibly close. 

Will pulled back to lean his forehead against the other man’s.  

“Tell me,” He commanded in a low whisper.

"Anything,” Hannibal gasped, offering anything Will could ask for.

“Tell me why you were so afraid of rejection,” Will’s voice had a deadly taunt to it.

Hannibal tilted his head up, a soft moan escaping his lips as Will slowed his rolling hips, hungrily taking him as deep as he could.

“Why did it matter if I wouldn’t want you like this, Hannibal?” He knew the answer, desperate to hear it on Hannibal’s tongue.

"Will,” It was a strangled whisper.

Will kept both hands on Hannibal’s shoulders for support as he picked up the pace, riding him with more forceful thrusts, deeper swerve of hips.

Will moved his mouth to hover beside Hannibal’s ear, his hot, fervent pants dancing over Hannibal’s skin.

“Why am I still alive?” He demanded in a low whisper. “Why didn’t you eat me?”

Hannibal’s breathing came shaky, unable to answer. He couldn’t, the words too sacred and yet unable to convey what he could barely understand in himself.

“Say it,” Will’s whisper was a low beg, a heady order.

Hannibal’s face raised, eyes opening, his brown irises barely slivers around his wide pupils.  They flicked over Will’s face, from pale and healing scars, to stubbled jaw, to his parted kissed raw lips, and then finally they landed on his smoldering eyes.  They gazed back expectantly, hopefully, lids heavy with lust.  

“I love you. Will.” The words were a brush of air around curved lips, sincerity so raw it seemed to pierce Will through his core.  

Hannibal watched in awe as Will arced his spine, throwing his head backwards, mouth hanging open. He watched Will’s body ripple, feeling him clenching tightly around him.  One more deep upward thrust and Will’s moan broke into a feral call of Hannibal’s name, and long hot ropes spilled upward, across Hannibal’s panting chest.  Hannibal’s own crashing climax sizzled through him seconds later, stuttering his hips and whiting his vision.  He filled Will, who rode him languidly until Hannibal had to snap his hands down to still Will’s hips. 

Will immediately crashed his lips down to Hannibal’s, his force knocking them both backwards on the bed. Their tongues explored, lazily swirling and blissfully sucking, and Hannibal slowly pulled out.   Will grunted at the blossoming soreness in its wake, pulling a sated chuckle from Hannibal, whose warm hands ran comfortingly over as much skin he could find.

When Hannibal began pulling away from the embrace, Will grumbled louder, tightening his grip around Hannibal’s waist, burying his face in the crock of Hannibal’s neck.  Hannibal smiled, continuing to try and extract himself, and continuing to find Will’s grip strong and stubborn around him.

"Will, I only need to retrieve a towel. We will both become uncomfortable soon,” he spoke softly.

Will’s response was muffled by skin and pillow. 

"What was that?” He asked.

Will leaned up on his elbow, lowering his mouth to take Hannibal’s once more. It was a sweet slide of lips, soft and smooth brushing. He pulled back, eyes searching Hannibal’s immediately, curling waves of intensity in his gaze.

“I said I love you, Hannibal.” 

Hannibal’s eyes softened, a familiar tug against his heart.  He raised a hand to Will’s cheek, cradling jaw, fingertips running over cheekbone.  Will watched with wide eyes, chest tightening under Hannibal’s adoring gaze.

“Ma già volgeva il mio disio e ’l velle, sì come rota ch’igualmente è mossa, l’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle,” Hannibal recited, a smile turning his lips.

Will listened to the warm Italian flowing from his lover’s lips with a patient smile.

“Are you ever going to translate all these lines for me?” He asked.

Hannibal smiled back, petting Will’s face affectionately.

“Is it not punishment enough that the gods bestowed me a beloved with a tragic incapacity for language? Now you demand I translate? ‘Adds insult to injury’ as they say?”

Will’s lips parted, shock lasting only a moment before he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, pulling away from their warm embrace with a huff.

“Oh never mind, your highness.  I’d hate to impose,” He grumbled, crawling off the bed.

He padded into the bathroom to retrieve one of the damp towel from the floor. Hannibal remained flat on his back, one arm under his head, bones feeling loose, muscles relaxed. 

‘”You know, Will,” he called, eyes following the other man as he entered the room again. “The Palazzo Capponi actually _paid_ me for that service.”

Will responded by throwing the towel at Hannibal’s smirking face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally some sex, after 10 chapters!
> 
> Translation: "My will and my desire were turned, as a wheel turns smoothly and evenly, by the love that moves the sun and the other stars.” Dante, Paradiso: Canto XXXIII, Lines 143-5.


	11. Chapter 11

 

> "And everywhere, everyone thinks the same thing: that someone should just go kill those motherfuckers."
> 
> The Boondock Saints
> 
>  

Will woke to a grey morning, almost an hour before the sun would show itself in the sky. He rolled over, a dull aching throbbing in his ass, already dreading having to move more.  He almost fell back asleep, pushing dealing with the pain for later, until he noticed the emptiness in the bed, a lack of warmth or sound of breathing. Cracking his eyes open, he saw the spot Hannibal left, sheets still pushed back. He ran both hands over his face, trying to rub out the residual sleepiness.

 He noticed a glass of water left next to the bed, and a small, white pill beside it. He pulled himself into a sitting position, setting his feet on the ground, wincing at the shooting soreness. He took the pill with a quick swallow of water, then shuffled to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

A few minutes later, he sauntered down the stairs, greeted by the warm smell of freshly pressed coffee. Hannibal was nowhere to be found, so he poured himself a cup and grabbed a peach from the center counter. He sat in a peaceful silence, sipping black coffee, slicing his fruit and replaying the night’s events in his head. It all seemed like a bizarre dream, a memory that didn't exactly belong to him. If it weren't for the light bruises scattering his collar bone he would have questioned if it really happened. But it did. He and Hannibal had fallen into rumpled sheets, wrestled and trembled, gave and took equal measures. He remembered the curve of accent around his name, how hard he came after Hannibal confessed what he never could say before.

Will felt a wave of warm pleasure over his body. He paused, squinting his eyes in confusion at that, tilting his head. He'd heard true love was supposed to make you feel good, but he felt _good_. Like really good. Lightheaded in a warm way, body tingling, muscles loose. He thought back to his waking, the pill he had taken. He had assumed it was Tylenol, but upon reconsidering he wouldn't put giving him something stronger past Hannibal.

Hannibal came bustling in through the front door, face red from the brisk weather, uncombed hair falling in his face.

“You drugged me," Will accused as a greeting.

Without pause Hannibal crossed the room, planting a quick kiss to Will's lips.

"Good morning, Will," he greeted, passing him for the living room, where he began stacking a few books into a cardboard box.

Will turned around, ready to push the conversation further, when he realized most of the room's essentials had been removed.

"Are we going somewhere?"

Hannibal didn't turn around as he spoke, though his tone was light. "Yes. We should leave the state as soon as possible. The odds are slim our adventure last night will lead back to here, but it's better if we leave soon anyway."

Will nodded slowly, finishing off his peach. The flavors felt somehow richer in his mouth, sliding down his throat with ease.

“What did you give me, Hannibal?" He asked, getting back to his earlier question.

Hannibal gave a small smile, as he put the top on the box.

"Percocet. Not too much, just enough to get you through the long drive we have ahead of us. Sitting will be uncomfortable." He added with a prideful smirk.

Will rolled his eyes.

"You gave me painkillers because we fucked too hard last night?" He asked incredulously.

Normally he would be more annoyed, but he was too drowsy at the moment to say anything else. Hannibal crossed the room, stopping to lean down, capturing Will's disapproving frown.

"I only wanted you to feel comfortable," he spoke softly, after pulling away only an inch.

"You're exhausting." Will responded dryly.

"Hence the Percocet," he smirked even bigger, and left Will with a wink, crossing through the room to the door.

* * *

As it turned out, Will was very grateful for the medicine Hannibal gave him.  After three hours of passing through highway and small towns, the pain killer began to wear off, and sitting in the passenger seat became something of an effort.  The pain was dull, though, and each time he shifted his position, the aching reminded him of their intimacy, so he grew to enjoy it.

By midafternoon they passed through the border between New York and Pennsylvania, the effects of the drug mostly faded.  It was about then that Will realized he hadn’t asked where they were going. When he had, Hannibal reached behind his seat to pull out a newspaper, dropping it on Will’s lap.

Will looked up questioningly, and Hannibal instructed him to turn to page A3.

The center page’s headline read, “Henderson Shockingly Walks.” 

Will skimmed the details of the miss trial in the first paragraph. “We’re going to Miami?”

“Accused of a series of sexual assaults.  Plenty of evidence, no alibi, and there were even two eye witnesses.”

Will remained silent as he read the rest of the article, stomach churning as he learned the gruesome details of the man’s slew of crimes.

“How was he not found guilty?”

Hannibal glanced off the road towards Will. “With enough money, any jury can be bought.”

Will remained silent, looking out his window at the passing clusters of buildings in the distance.

“So this is what you want to do, then? Travel the country, tracking down bad guys?”

Hannibal shifted in his seat, adjusting his grip on the wheel. “I want to do whatever you want to do, Will.  We can leave the country, travel anywhere in the world.”

When Will didn’t respond, Hannibal continued. “But you wouldn’t be satisfied by that.”

Will turned to look at him. “And why’s that?”

“Because there’s people you can help here.  We can make a difference, like you had been doing with Jack and the FBI.”

“I wasn’t hunting down criminals with the intent to slaughter.” Will’s voice took on an agitated tone. 

“Will,” Hannibal spoke softer, turning to meet his gaze for a second. “I’m not trying to pressure you into anything.  Say the word and I’ll drop it.”

Will turned back to look out the window. “Drop it.”

* * *

The topic wasn’t brought up again until the next morning.  They had stopped at another shit motel, this one themed for the American Midwest, covered in pictures of geckos and desert, cactus print on all the sheets.  This time they both burrowed under the same covers, the other bed all but ignored.  They kissed lazily, willing themselves to stay awake just a bit longer, if only to have a few more moments of warm touching, calm smiling.

That morning they walked down the street to a small diner, where they sat in a bright red and yellow booth and ordered from laminated menus. They sipped watery coffee and spoke in hushed voices as they waited for their orders.  Will couldn’t help but smile watching Hannibal, the connoisseur of expensive taste, sat in pealing faux-leather upholstery, looking wildly out of place.  The same fingers that elegantly danced over ivory keys wrapped around a thick grey mug, his hair un-styled and sweater showing creases where it was folded.  When their orders came, Will almost choked on his drink at the look of distaste on Hannibal’s face. 

“How does one mess up an omelet this incredibly?” Hannibal asked, poking it distrustingly with a fork.

“I told you to get the pancakes,” Will admonished, shoveling a fluffy, syrup soaked bite into his mouth.

Hannibal held up a rubbery mushroom with his fork.

“From a can,” he said miserably.

He looked past his sad mushroom to see Will, smiling so brilliantly it was almost worth it.  He popped the mushroom sliver into his mouth, grimacing immediately. _Almost_ worth it.

“Enjoy your discount breakfast, Will.  This is the last time we dine anywhere with cheese fries on the menu,” he grumbled, taking a sip from his water cup.

When Will didn’t respond, Hannibal followed his gaze towards the corner of the room. Will’s eyes were glued to the tube screen there, which broadcasted similar headlines as Hannibal’s newspaper.  Except this time Will saw Henderson’s face, saw the emptiness in the man’s eyes, saw him smile something dark and smug at the camera.  The bottom of the screen scrolled the list of charges, the names of the women he killed.  Will felt heat rising in his chest, suddenly entirely uninterested in his food.

Hannibal turned back to Will, pursing his lips, considering broaching the topic again.  He took a patient sip of coffee, waiting for Will to speak.  He recognized that dark look, the set jaw, unfocused glare.  It was rather enthralling, and he tried to contain his excitement as he watched those deadly thoughts churn in his beloved’s brilliant mind.

* * *

 

Alana sat up in bed, scrolling through headlines on her tablet, Margot fast asleep next to her.  Her wife had been complaining that she’d gotten obsessive recently, refusing to let go of the idea that Hannibal was still out there.  At first she was almost swayed by Margot’s pleading to move on, but as time passed, she found her mind continually going back to that article.  The brutality, the set scene, the victim choice all pointed so terrifyingly to a truth she hated to even consider.

It was nearing two in the morning when she decided to give it a rest.  She was about to power down her device, slip under soft sheets and cozy up to her wife when one last headline grabbed her attention.

 “Breaking News: Alleged Rapist Found Dead, Mutilated”

 She read the article over and over, heart sinking with each word. “Surgical precision”, “gruesome elegance”, “zero evidence”.

 Part of her felt paranoid, could already hear Jack’s skepticism, Margot’s impatience.  But she had known Hannibal closely, and in the years following the night she was pushed out that second story window, she’d studied him, hunting down every last article, learned all she could of his behavior, his crimes.  Just in case one day he’d return.  When he had escaped, her and her family went into hiding, boarded a helicopter which took them to a small, south pacific island where they lived for years. They only hesitantly returned to normal life when the FBI officially announced Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter dead.  But Alana never dropped her guard for a moment.

And now here were two murders, unrelated, states away from each other. But she knew. _I always keep my promises, Alana._ A frozen shiver crawled over her skin.


	12. Chapter 12

> “She dropped her eyes in a mocking imitation of demurral and said, “You’ve always been kind to me.”   
>  The king laughed out loud. He held out his arm, and she leaned against him. “What a lie that was,” he said.
> 
> Megan Whalen Turner, _The King of Attolia_

They sat in the hotel’s patio lounge overlooking a thin street and wide beach, the waves crashing rhythmically in the distance.  Apparently Hannibal had had enough of grimy, ashtray motel rooms, as he had booked them a double room in a four-star, ocean-front hotel in Miami.  Will had learned not to ask where all his money came from, and to just accept they were more than comfortable in that department.

They had arrived in the city a few days prior, set to work on hunting down their prey. It was easy enough to find him, follow him into the darker side of the city, all the way into his dingy apartment. They’d worked together as they had that first night with Dolarhyde, watched only by bare, drywall and early morning moon. By the end of it, they had both stood over their work, panting and splattered in blood.  After clearing any evidence from the area, they’d showered and changed, as was planned, and were back in their hotel room before morning room service stopped by.

They had slept most of the following days, calling up for breakfast and lunch from the hotel’s kitchen.  Will was grateful that Hannibal couldn’t find anything to complain about with their meals. Now they sat in cushioned armchairs with a small glass table between them, surrounded by newly lit torches and quietly chatting couples, watching a blazing orange sun drop lethargically from the sky.  They had hid in bed all day from the daytime heat, and now basked in the cooling air, rustled by the occasional warm breeze.  They’d ordered strong, tropical drinks, and sipped them as they watched throngs of tourists pass.

Will shared a small, secret smile with Hannibal when they’d overheard the couple two seating areas over discussing the “horrible crime scene” discovered the night before.  Hannibal sat his drink down.

"Do you think you could be happy, doing this?” He asked.

 Will continued to look out at the sea, and Hannibal’s gaze danced over the glowing orange light soaking into Will’s features.

"I’m not sure. It feels…right.” He said after a moment of thinking, choosing his words carefully.

"Would you consider this tolerating, or delighting in wickedness?” Hannibal asked, thinking back to the night he’d given himself up to Jack.  The night Will had at last bested him.

Will furrowed his brow. “I’m not sure I’d call this wickedness.”

“Righteousness?”

Will didn’t respond at first.  He let Hannibal’s question hang in the air between them, considering.

“Justice.” He said, turning to meet Hannibal’s gaze. 

Hannibal smiled, looked down at his drink and raise it to his lips.

“To justice, then.”

They sat in silence for a while, staring out at the ocean. Hannibal wished he had a canvas and some paints, imagining in his mind’s eye how he would recreate the scene. Will’s mind, however, twisted darker, calmness evading him as his conscience crashed in rolling waves.  

He didn’t have an answer for Hannibal, didn’t know what he wanted beyond staying by his side.  He’d felt good killing these past two people, but he wasn’t sure if that was all entirely due to the fact that they were criminals.  He was intoxicated by the act, not by what it meant.  He worried if he kept indulging, if he’d be able to stop.  What happens when they run out of obviously bad people?  Was this just feeding a growing addiction, and if so, would he be able to stop?  He imagined the next person to cut in front of him in line at the grocery store getting a swift stab to the neck.  That was how the Ripper chose his victims, wasn’t it?  Eat the rude and all.

Will looked at Hannibal, traced the elegant curves of his face, admiring the sunset blazing in his dark eyes.

“Do you think you could be happy not doing this?” He asked, feeling his stomach tighten. Waiting for his response.

Hannibal turned, met Will’s gaze.

“Yes.” He spoke with such finality it surprised Will.

“You could be happy? Hanging up the Ripper hat, living a normal life?” He asked incredulously.

“I did that once before, for you, if you recall.”

Will rolled his eyes. “Being imprisoned in a mental hospital doesn’t count as a normal life, Hannibal.”

“It was as normal as I’ve ever been,” Hannibal argued with a small grin. “No killing, no eating people.”

When Will didn’t respond Hannibal continued. “I told you before, Will.  Anywhere you want to go, anyone you want to be.”

* * *

Bright Miami city lights twinkled through the entire wall of window, joined by the moon in their reflective dance in the water.  The breathtaking view was all but ignored by the two men on the bed, surrounded by soft white comforter and feather pillows.  They were too absorbed in their wild heat, their sweaty, feverish skin sliding against each other. Will’s low moan bounced off the white, clean walls as he carefully slid inside Hannibal

They had stumbled up from the deck after the sun left the sky, their minds coated in a warm buzz from one too many drinks.  They’d started kissing in the elevator, dipping smooth tongue over soft lips, much to the discomfort of the middle-aged couple stood awkwardly next to them.  They’d stumbled down the hallway, lips still chasing lips, not caring at all what surfaces they ran into as long as it pinned their bodies impossibly close.

Will had dropped the key card in his attempt to blindly slide it into the reader, and by the time they finally got the door open, Hannibal had both their shirts off, pants soon to follow. He’d made quick work stretching himself open for Will, laid flat on his back, eyes closed and head bent on the pillow, mouth hanging open.  Will watched with wide eyes, painfully hard, gaze raking over miles of naked skin, waiting with waning patience as Hannibal fucked himself on his own hand.

When his eyes slid open, he met Will’s stare with a hooded gaze, and Will was on top of him within seconds.  Will’s body blanketed Hannibal, his lips catching each of Hannibal’s breathy pants. One hand held a tight grip on Hannibal’s hip, the other lined himself up.  He carefully pushed his tip into that impossibly tight heat, and inch by slow inch he filled Hannibal until he was seated fully, his groan filling Hannibal.

He leaned up onto his hands, shoulder blades meeting as he moved his hips backwards, before pushing back in.  Hannibal’s eyes remained squeezed shut, his nerves sparking all over his body as he was surrounded by so much pleasure he could do nothing more than gasp and shove down, inviting Will as deep as he could.  They began moving as one, each thrust coming harder, hungrily accepted. 

Will’s movements became carnal, thoughts blanketing, skin tingling as he slowly took Hannibal apart with each thrust.  He’d never felt this connected with anyone, this entirely intertwined. He was fully himself, felt wholly alive with their shared pleasure.  Each breathy moan, hitched gasp melted into each other, and Will lost track of who voiced them.  Their bodies moved rhythmically together, bending and rising, meeting with each glorious thrust.  Soft, white sheets slid around them, comforter nowhere to be found. 

Will leaned down for a quick kiss before leaning up entirely hands running down chest and stomach, stopping to strongly grip hips.  With the new position, each thrust moved purposefully, deliciously hitting that sweet spot. Hannibal began tensing with pleasure, and Will’s eyes raked over his tremoring muscles, pleasure building intolerably inside his gut.  He watched with hooded eyes as Hannibal’s orgasm hit him in waves, drunk off the sight.  The arched back, the perfect, bowed lips parted, the tousled hair. Hannibal clenching around his stuttered thrusts pushed Will over the edge. A feral moan escaped him as his vision whited, body tensing and releasing, spilling deep inside Hannibal.

He flopped forward, sweaty and sated, and Hannibal lazily dropped a hand over his back.  His cheek rested on the pillow, forehead leaning against the side of Hannibal’s head, soft pants of breath dancing over the skin at Hannibal’s neck.

With Will still inside, Hannibal rolled them both over, capturing Will’s tired grin in a slow, deep kiss.  His hands cradled Will’s face, fingers carding through wild curls, as his lips moved with delicate force.  Will loved it when Hannibal did this, ending each act of pleasure with this reverent, loving sharing.  Marking their exchanges as sacred, as something of great importance. He kissed with such fervor and attention, as if the kiss were just as meaningful as the sex, if not more so.

When he broke the kiss, he carefully slid off of Will’s softening length, landing to lay on his back beside Will. He spent only a moment before rising to retrieve a towel.

Will silently watched his lean form disappear into the bathroom and return.  Will kept his eyes trained on the other man as he ran soft towel over his own skin, and then Will’s, ridding any leftover stickiness. When he laid back down, Will was already moving to intertwine their bodies, head nuzzling into shoulder, arm slithering around stomach. Hannibal sighed with content as his arm draped over Will’s side.

Will stared out the window, admiring the twinkle of lights for the first time.

“I don’t want this to be our life.” He spoke softly after some time had passed.

Hannibal raised his hand to tangle into curls.

“What do you want our lives to be?” He asked, eyes shutting.   

Will ran his hand up over Hannibal’s chest, thinking.

“Easy. Peaceful.” He listed as they came to him. “Safe.”

 “You’ve always been safe with me,” Hannibal responded. 

Will snorted, and Hannibal grinned wide.

“What a lie that was,” Will chuckled, turning his cheek to kiss the soft skin where his head laid.

They both remained silent for a bit, before Will spoke again.

“Find us somewhere we can disappear, Hannibal. Somewhere on the other side of the globe, where we can live peacefully.  Where you can drag me out to see cultural masterpieces now and again. Where I can collect dogs.” As he spoke he shut his eyes, imagining a future. “They don’t even have to speak English there.  I’ll learn any language you want.  I’ll let you teach me Italian.”

“Oh, how thoughtful.” Will could hear the fond smile in his voice.

Hannibal felt Will’s returning smile on his skin. He lowered his hand to trail goosebumps down Will’s arm. They both drifted to sleep, minds full of a future somewhere foreign, of settling into a new culture, having only each other.  Hannibal’s heart filled more at each passing image, remembering a time long ago when he’d made similar plans for him and Will. 


	13. Chapter 13

> “Those hours given over to basking in the glow of an imagined  
>  future, of being carried away in streams of promise by a love or  
>  a passion so strong that one felt altered forever and convinced  
>  that even the smallest particle of the surrounding world was  
>  charged with purpose of impossible grandeur”
> 
> Mark Strand, _Almost Invisible: Poems_

It’s been a week and a half since they left the bright warmth of Miami, traveled northwest and settled in a rented cabin along the Mississippi River.  It was small, dusty, and part of a failing vacation resort barely frequented even in the summer.  As winter neared, cold air shriveled green to brown all around their temporary home, as Hannibal spent his days typing away at his laptop, or on the phone speaking in several different languages, all of which Will couldn’t understand.  While Hannibal worked on securing a new home for them, somewhere entirely safe and far, Will wandered the thick woods around them.  Sometimes he’d walk down to the river’s edge, watching reds and oranges waver on the water’s surface.  He lamented not having a pole to swing, but found peace still in vacantly looking out over the moving water.

He thought about his choice, what asking to run away meant.  He wasn’t entirely sure, but he knew his request for security meant doing a great deal less of what Hannibal wanted to.  He wondered if that would make him happy, if he could find peace without ripping.  He immediately thought of all the books he’d read on psychopaths, narcissists and cannibals.  Hannibal hardly fit into any one category, defied common knowledge.  But all the books warned of compulsion, an inability to change. That Hannibal would need to keep killing, scratching that itch.  That he would always want to dine on those around him.  As Will strolled slowly along the water’s edge, he wondered if that were true.  He’d gone long periods of time without doing those things, Will reasoned.  Between his ripper kills, between when he left Florence as a young man and started again in America.  During the three long years he’d spend imprisoned.

 And yet, something about telling Hannibal to stop felt wrong.  It felt controlling, unaccepting of who he really was.  Will knew he couldn’t go on loving a cold blooded killer, that he couldn’t sit happily at home, dog in lap, while Hannibal went out and killed some innocent person.  But he also knew he loved Hannibal so devastatingly, so completely, that nothing could pry him from his side. He didn’t want to think about a future where he would have to leave. Was loving the devil as far as he’d go?  Would he stand by and let more innocent people die at his hands?  The thought churned his stomach. He didn’t want to be the one to leash Hannibal, but he knew he’d drive himself mad if he let him run rampant.

Let him? Will balked at the thought.  Hannibal wasn’t one to be ‘let’ to do anything. Will had no control, Hannibal an entity all to himself. And he was choosing Will, choosing peace.  Will let that thought settle over him, and as he moseyed back up the slight hill to the cabin, he tried to hold onto the idea. Hannibal wanted security too.  Wanted peace.  Wanted him.

* * *

She sat in the center of the wide, deep red sofa, fidgeting with her wrinkled skirt, feeling out of place among marble floors, wide oriental rugs and long, heavy curtains. The woman she’d just met sat across from her in an arm chair, watching her with detached suspicion with stunning blue eyes, her crisp, crowding curls framing striking features.  Molly pushed her overgrown bangs back, wondering why she didn’t put on any make-up before leaving the house, trying to remember the last time she’d gotten her hair done.

“So Alana tells me you have a son?” she asked, trying to pull them out of the oppressive silence.

“We do.  He finally went down for his nap, thank God. If he were awake, I’d introduce you.”

Her smile would have seemed genuine if fear didn’t dance so vividly in her eyes.   The second Molly introduced herself in their grand foyer that look clouded her every glance.

Heals clacked over the marble floor, introducing Alana carrying a tray of steaming porcelain cups.  She smiled politely as she set the tray on the glass table between them, before sitting in the chair next to her wife with a soft sigh.

“Thank you again for meeting with us, Molly. I know this can’t be easy for you,” she said gently, handing her the hot cup.

Molly nodded, accepting it, letting the strong aroma of coffee offer small comfort.

“I was, um, a little surprised to have received the email, to be honest.  I thought I was the only one who still had hope.”

Alana glanced over at Margot whose lips tightened.

“I’m not sure ‘hope’ would be the word we’d choose,” Margot spoke with distant dryness.

Molly shook her head, heart sinking, remembering why they’d invited her over. “Right.  Right, I’m sorry.  No, me either, I suppose.”

Alana was moved with sympathy seeing Molly’s heartache so clearly etched into her features.  She remembered how bright she used to look, the few times she met her, smiling easily by Will’s side.  Will’s loss had pierced her own heart, and she couldn’t imagine losing him as a spouse.

“Jack tells me you came to him with questions about Will recently?” Alana asked softly, getting down to business.

“Yeah,” Molly nodded, taking a shaky breath. “I check in with him every week or so to see if there’s any news.”  She wondered if that made her seem desperate, but shook the thought from her mind.  Alana was Will’s friend, she had to remind herself.

“This time you said you knew he was still alive.  I was wondering how you could be so sure?” She asked.

“I um.  I was pretty angry when I said that.” She looked back to her skirt. “I don’t really have any solid proof. Only my gut feeling.  I can’t really explain it.”

“Explain what?” Alana asked, leaning forward.

Molly looked up, meeting Alana’s imploring blue eyes with her own steady green gaze.

“When he went missing, I felt it. I knew it before Jack even knocked on my door. It was like this horrible splitting, like lightening splintering a tree. He was just suddenly so gone.  But I—um.  I didn’t _feel_ him die.” She felt the familiar sting of tears against her eyelids.  “It’s not logical, I know.  It doesn’t make any sense, but… I was- I am his wife. I would have known if he’d drowned. I would have known.”

Alana plucked a tissue from a box on the table and held it out for her, before settling back in her chair, staring at her.

“I believe you,” she finally said.

Molly looked up surprised, as Margot stood with a huff and crossed the room to look out the window.

“Margot isn’t a fan of my search; she thinks I’m paranoid, holding onto the devil of our past out of fear, even in his death.” Alana’s eyes followed Margot’s pacing before the huge window.

“You believe Hannibal Lecter survived?” Molly asked, fear clutching it’s gnarled hands around her heart. She’d considered this before, but always pushed it from her mind.  There was more of his blood at the cliff side crime scene than Will’s, and she held onto that.

“Neither of their bodies were found,” Alana offered, trying to be gentle.

Margot turned.  “That’s because they both got washed out to sea.” She swept her hand dramatically. “A fittingly gothic ending to the famous murder husbands.”

Molly squeezed her eyes shut, hating the expression that had splattered across every news headline that had followed their disappearance.  She fought the image that kept popping up in her waking nightmares, of Will’s face, bloated, pale and bloody, bobbing somewhere along the bottom of that huge, dark ocean.

Alana sent Margot an unappreciative glare, gesturing to Molly with her head. Margot grimaced and turned back to the window.

“I apologize.  That was insensitive.” 

The silence that followed was broken by the soft sound of feet padding over carpet directly above them.

“That would be Aiden,” Alana said with a soft smile. “Never stays asleep for too long. Takes himself right out of bed, goes straight to his toy chest.”

Molly smiled with a knowing nod. “Walter did the same thing. Except he’d let himself into the bathroom to make what he termed ‘sink waterfall.’”

Alana tented an eyebrow and tilted her head, smiling wider. “Sounds like a lot of fun for a little boy.”

“Not so much for a single mom.” Molly laughed.

“I’ll go get him. He probably needs a change,” Margot said, walking across the room for the hallway that lead towards the carpeted, spiraling staircase. “While I’m gone, you might as well introduce her to your paranoia.”  

* * *

Will shuck off his jacket as he crossed in through the back door, just as the sun began to disappear behind the tree line. He slid off his shoes, padding socked feet over hardwood into the kitchen.  Grabbing a beer from the fridge, he wandered towards the eating area, where Hannibal sat, absorbed in whatever he had running on his laptop.  He didn’t look up when Will came in, or when he sat in the chair cattycorner to Hannibal.  Will leaned his chair backwards on its back two legs, taking a slow swig. He let his other hand hang, trying not to look too bored.

He let his eyes travel over his lover, sat in the fading orange light spilling in from the bay windows.  Hannibal wore a dark red sweater and loose, black sleep pants, looking so entirely different than Will ever thought he’d see him.  No three piece suits, no styled hair, no elegant line of poetry or sharp, observing eyes.  He looked vulnerable, soft in a regal sort of way.  His silver blonde hair fell over his eyes, and Will noted how long it had gotten since they began this journey together.  He found he liked the way it hung disheveled over his ears.  He never would have guessed how warm he’d find the sight, how much he’d delight in domesticity with Hannibal Lecter.

After a few clacks of keys, Hannibal caught on to being watched and finally looked up.  Light caught in his eyes, making them a lighter amber, glowing as they met Will’s.

“I hope you like Spain,” He said with a sideways smile.

Will considered this. “I’ve never been.” He told him simply, but not opposed to the idea. 

“Since you put those lovely restrictions on how I’m to find us a new home-”

“Restrictions being no murdering people,” Will interjected with the slightest of eye rolls.

“Restrictions regardless, love.  They’ve made forging our way a little more difficult.”

“Oh, my apologies,” Will grumbled, taking another pull from his beer. 

Hannibal stood, stretched his arms above his head, before rounding the table and landing a brief kiss to Will’s temple. He then continued into the kitchen, fishing around inside the fridge. 

“Does this mean I’ll have to learn Spanish?” Will asked, playing with the beer’s label, soft from condensation.

Hannibal closed the fridge’s door with his foot, arms full of random vegetables and a paper wrapped parcel of meat.

“Si, mi amor.  Pero es bueno.  La lengua es más fácil a aprender de italiano,” Hannibal responded, dropping the ingredients onto the center counter.

Will huffed and let the front of his chair land with a quiet thud. He stood up, walking to stand on the other side of the granite counter.

“Donde in Spain?” Will asked with a playful smile, watching his misuse of language rub raw against Hannibal.

“A little north of Madrid. There’s a university looking for a professor of early American literature.” Hannibal explained, pealing the thin skin off an onion.

“Do you know American literature?” He asked, trying to remember one time Hannibal had spoken on the subject.

Hannibal snapped his gaze up to catch Will’s and responded without missing a beat. “I know everything.”

Will tried to maintain a dry look, but when Hannibal offered a wide grin, he couldn’t help but mirror the look. He flicked his gaze to the assortment of bright vegetables laid before them.  He knew he’d never impress Hannibal in the culinary department, but he sure as hell could slice a few bell peppers. When Hannibal held out the razor sharp knife, handle towards Will, Will took it carefully.  Hannibal set a bright green pepper on the cutting board before Will.

“Thin as you can slice,” he instructed, before moving to unwrap the meat.

A comfortable silence stretched, interrupted only by the sound of the blade’s edge meeting wooden board, and Hannibal’s slight pounding to tenderize the thick, pink slabs.

“Will you be happy there?” Will finally broke the silence, hating having to ask at all.

Hannibal didn’t look up as he continued his work. “It’s not my preferred field of study, nor position.  But academia has a familiar comfort, and the university is quite lovely.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Will responded.

Hannibal look up. A beat and then “I know.”

 Will waited, placing down his silver blade to turn to the fridge and retrieve a second beer.

Hannibal finally looked up, stilling his hands. “It will be a challenge, a drastic change.  But not impossible.  I’ll have you, which ranks much higher on my list of priorities.  Between semesters we can travel around Europe, I can show you the vast beauty there.  Not a bad trade off, Will.”

 This time Will looked away first, and beer in hand, he wandered to the window, looked out at the settling night.

“I suppose we can plan…vacations.” Will offered finally, not turning.

 Hannibal understood what he meant, and he felt an easy warmth spread at Will’s consideration for him, his worry over his needs. After Hannibal rinsed his hands in the sink, he crossed the room to slither both arms around Will’s waist.  He rested he head on Will’s shoulder, peering out at the growing darkness with him.

“Whatever you want to do, wherever you want to go.” He told him, his soft voice rumbling against Will’s ear.  

* * *

Molly held the print outs of a handful of news articles.  Picture after picture of gruesome murders, headline after headline of unsolved cases. She was having trouble comprehending what Alana was saying, as she stared down at the mutilated corpse with words carved into his chest.  She came here for Will, how did it come to all this?

“I’m sorry,” Molly interrupted Alana’s stream of words she hadn’t been listening to.

Alana stopped talking, and waited patiently for Molly to catch up.  When she talked about this she tended to get over excited. She reminded herself this wasn’t just anyone she was talking to, it was Will’s wife.

“You think these have something to do with my husband?” She asked, still not connecting the dots Alana placed down before her.

  Alana waited a beat then nodded.

“I think…it’s possible he and or Hannibal was responsible for them.” She told her, choosing his words carefully.

 Molly dropped the documents onto the table as if they were suddenly too hot to hold.  They had moved from the sitting room to Alana’s home office, furnished by a large wood desk, and matching chair.  The wide, ceiling length windows offered a cold afternoon light, and Molly stood beside Alana, looking down at the mess of files, her heart beginning to tighten and fidget.

“These could be anybody,” she argued, not wanting to accept for a second Will had anything to do with this.

“Molly, I know this isn’t easy-”

“Will didn’t do these.” Molly interrupted again, tone definite, but not cruel.

“Ok.  Let’s say for a moment you’re right.  But Hannibal could have.”

Molly looked down again, eyes scanning.  She thought back to what Will had told her about Hannibal, on the sparse occasions she could get him to say anything about him.  Manipulative, narcissistic, obsessive, intelligent, refined.  Could he have survived?  She had spent long hours over the past few months trying to follow Will into the void he left, trying to figure out how he could just disappear so completely, after promising to return to her. She couldn’t hold it against him for dying, but that didn’t stop her from feeling any less abandoned.  What if this man, this Hannibal Lecter had lived?  A black hope began to spread in her chest, because if he did, then maybe Will did too. 

“You think he’s done all this killing already?  Even for a pro, this is a lot.” She commented.  There must have been about twenty bodies in total. 

“No,” Alana responded, excited Molly was finally reaching the same page. “These are all just potentials.  I’m only sure of two, maybe three. But there could be more.”

Molly listened, feeling like her lungs were getting too tight.  This could change everything.  This could lead her to Will.  Finally there was someone who didn’t look at her with pity when she said she still had hope to see him again.  But something bothered her about it, about Alana’s insinuation about Will’s involvement.

“Why did you invite me here?” She asked.

Alana sighed. “I-” she stopped herself, struggling to find the right words. “I’m not exactly clear on that.  I just. You know Will better than anyone, and when Jack told me you said you knew he was still alive, I wanted to confer with you, about my theory.”

“Your theory that my husband has become a serial killer.”

 Alana winced at the expression. “Will was my friend. I really hope I’m wrong.”

Molly sighed, lowering into one of the leather seats facing the desk.

“What makes you think you’re right?” She asked, disliking how it felt to entertain the idea.

     -          

Hours later, Molly would lie awake, staring at the ceiling, going over their conversation again and again.  Those horrible pictures burned behind her eyes every time she tried to close them. The possibility of Will being behind the brutal images made her skin crawl.  And if he was, that would mean she had never really known Will.  Because the man she married wouldn’t be capable of all this. At least dead, he was familiar to her. The idea made her heart ache, and she wondered what kind of wife that made her.  

She wasn’t sure if she could stomach the truth, whatever that may be.  As she slowly drifted off, she only knew she needed to find him, or Hannibal, and get answers. Answers that seemed to hound her as she tried to sleep, that hung in the dark air above her bed.

* * *

Will closed his eyes as he lowered himself into the steaming bath.  Lavender and jasmine danced in the water rolling over his tired skin, and eyes closed, he laid his head against the edge of the tub. It wasn’t much of a bathtub, a small white number squeezed in the back of the bathroom, which attached to the only bedroom.  He hadn’t even really considered taking a soak until Hannibal suggested it, pulling out a jar of fragrant salts as if from thin air after Will complained of sore muscles. Will was at first hesitant, but had to admit Hannibal had the right idea.  Hot water soaked into his tingling skin, and Will closed his eyes, letting himself relax.

His mind had been gentler to him since he had made the decision to give up killing.  Maybe not completely, but it felt right to seek normalcy, or as much as he could find in a life with Hannibal. He wasn’t sure how much more blood his mind could take, how it’s already soaked so thoroughly into his skin, to his bones. With this new life Hannibal planned for them came a promise of freedom from the emotional exhaustion it took to slay.  He was drained, and as his mind drifted for the better part of an hour, he wondered how long it would take to rejuvenate, to restore what had been depleted.  He felt warm knowing Hannibal would be willing to wait, maybe even forever.

 Will had sunken into the water, chin dipping as he dozed lightly, when a soft rapping came from the open door.  His eyes peaked open, landing on the familiar sight of rumpled hair and silken sleep pants.  Hannibal held his thin laptop with a look of slight concern.

“Is something wrong?” Will asked, immediately sensing an alteration in Hannibal’s normally easy demeanor.

 “You shouldn’t sleep in the bath, Will. You could easily drown,” He spoke, uncharacteristically avoiding Will’s eyes.

“Hannibal,” Will pressed, not falling for the diversion.

 Hannibal sighed as he entered the small room, lowering himself onto the lidded toilet that sat next to the bath.  Will wondered absently at the man’s ability to make any chair look like a throne.

 “Did you ever live in South Carolina, Will?” He spoke as if he didn’t want to even ask.

Will’s brows furrowed. “Several different times, different towns.”

“Was Southport one of them?”

Will’s mind flashed to the creaky house he’d lived in with his dad for a year, the long hallways of an overcrowded high school. 

"Yes,” he answered as he sat up, water sloshing nosily around him.

 Hannibal nodded, looking down at his laptop’s screen.

 “Enough suspense, Hannibal,” Will pleaded.

 In response, Hannibal turned the computer on his lap around to face Will as he spoke, “Whatever you choose to do, I will be with you.”

 Will didn’t register what was said to him as his heart was dropping into his stomach.  He read the headline and first paragraph of a news article.

>  Slaughtered Teen’s Case Reopened
> 
> S. Carolina: The ‘80s were a time of faded jeans and grunge punk bands for most contemporary teenagers, but for Evan Lester, it was anything but. A horror show a sleepy beach town never expected ended with the tragic murder of the 16 year old, and no one to blame. The case stayed cold for 15 years, until recent DNA evidence has brought the case to national attention.”

Will stopped reading half way through, any peace from his bath evaporating out of him like steam off hot tea.

 


	14. Chapter 14

> “Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”
> 
>        Freud

They were in Southport within the week.  Hannibal had rented a wide windowed, light blue and white beachfront house, in the middle of Tourist City, USA, for conspicuousness. The home was sandwiched between a row of identical houses, with a back deck made of faded wood, leading straight onto sand. It felt as unfamiliar to Will as all their other single-serving homes they’ve blown through over the past months, except this time with minimalistic furnishing and anchors painted on everything.

The long drive northwest up winding highway, Will had little idea what to expect. How he’d find the killers first, before the investigators. He had blocked out a lot of what had happened all those years ago, let time and distance swallow the trauma.  But their names, Ryan Barlow and Nicolas Matheson, had been long burned into his memory, which was all they had to go on. Hannibal’s offer to use regressive hypnotherapy was meant with a glare and flat ‘no’, Will not wanting to cross the line back into patient psychiatrist relationship. He would just have to find the memories on his own, and hope he could stomach whatever brutality hide there.

He hadn’t expected the bruise of nostalgia to sweep over him as Hannibal drove down the streets he’d learned to drive on.  The faded pastel paint on every house, the taste of salt in the air, the pull of the rumbling Atlantic on the far side of long stretches of sand, speckled with driftwood and the occasional litter. Suddenly Will was back as a teenager, walking under bright sun to the corner store for a soda with his only friend.  Will could swear he saw their ghosts on the crumbled pathway, Evan Lester’s lanky form throwing his head back to laugh at something Will had said.

It was off season, which meant less tourists and beachgoers to navigate around.  The few sparse looks from locals as they unloaded their suitcases were met with Hannibal smiling broadly, throwing up a neighborly wave.  Will offered a tense smile before lugging their things inside.

Their first night, with no food yet, they ate at a five star seafood restaurant in the center of town. It was yet another excuse for Hannibal to put Will in a collared button-up and dine on white-clothed tables with crystal drinkware. As they took their seats, Will picked up on the slow, southern drawl carried in the soft murmur of conversation around; he had forgotten how familiar that twang once was to him.

Unable to discuss the finer details of their plan with so many ears around them, they spoke only of pleasantries.  Hannibal picked Will’s brain about the year he had spent there, and Will tried not to cringe around each memory.  By the end of their meals, Will was practically asleep in his chair, wanting desperately to get back to their room to crawl under cool blue sheets. When the check finally came, the waitress smiled sweetly, asking Hannibal where his accent was from. Hannibal ate the attention right up and conversed with her politely, Will staying silent in his sleepiness.  She asked what brought the two of them to South Carolina, and Hannibal surprised them both when he reached across the table to gently stroke the back of Will’s hand with a thumb. 

“We’re actually here on our honeymoon. My husband here had never seen the ocean before now.” He looked sweetly to Will, ignoring Will’s immediate choking on his water.

 The waitress eyed Will with concern before turning her smile back to Hannibal.

"Well ain’t that sweet,” she told him, speaking loudly over Will’s coughing.

* * *

Molly had read the headline after dinner, late into the night.  Walter had already gone to sleep, and she sat curled on the sofa, phone in one hand, glass of wine in the other. The T.V. flickered scenes of some late night talk show as it mumbled quietly, ignored. Scrolling through headlines had became a mild obsession for her, ever since talking with Alana. They’d agreed to notify each other next time either found something.  Alana had called her once since then, and it was only to ask if she’d found anything.

> Slaughtered Teen’s Case Re-opens

Molly nearly dropped her glass when she’d read the name.  She remembered first hearing about Evan, years ago.  It was one of the only times Will had opened up about his childhood. He’d hugged a pillow as they sat in her old living room. A cinnamon candle had been burning on the coffee table between them, and Will’s eyes had focused on the dancing flame as he spoke. She remembered how they glowed, the light reflecting in deep green.  He’d had a muted fury as he recounted the details, regret tinging each word.  He said he’d never told anyone about it, not even his dad.

Molly’s heart was racing as she abandoned her spot on the couch, moving into the kitchen to where her laptop sat on the table.  Before she could even think, she was looking up flights.  With a few clicks, a text to her mom to watch Walter for the weekend, she booked one leaving the next night.  Five hundred dollars later, she leaned back on her chair and covered her eyes with her palms.

She had no idea what she was doing, or what to expect when she got to South Carolina. Why she was even going, who she hoped to find.  It was a long shot that he was even still alive.  But she knew that if he were traveling around somehow, he would be drawn to Southport, back to those ugly memories.  He was never able to stay away from the horror shows of his past. 

She let her hands drop to her sides, eyes opening to land on her phone.  She should call Alana and tell her what she knew, what she so suddenly had planned. Yet something felt wrong about it, like it would be betraying Will’s trust.  She felt ludicrous, being defensive of her almost definitely dead husband’s secret. But if he were still alive, there must be a reason he hadn’t come home, and whatever that reason was, it wasn’t hers to give to Alana.

She was either going to find him on his own, or in the hands of a cannibalistic serial killer. Both ideas made her chest clench, feel a sickly nausea in her gut, but anything would be better than find nothing, she rationalized.  Nothing meant she was chasing a ghost, insane enough in her mourning to believe something so outlandish. But regardless of what she found, she couldn’t bring herself to make the call. Whatever happened was between her and Will…and possibly Hannibal Lecter.  

* * *

Will spent the first few days driving around his old neighborhoods, reconnecting himself to a long forgotten life. To find the rage raw and new again, to intertwine his consciousness with the past.  He drove past the high school, looped around the rundown diner and shopping strip he and Evan used to frequent.  It took him some hours to gain enough courage to drive to the second-run movie theater, and park around back where there was nothing but an old dumpster and faded paint on the few parking stalls.

He took a shuttered breath, hating how off tilter being back pushed him.  His hard stare landed on the corner of the building, right where he’d watched two grown teenagers beat his best friend to death fifteen years ago. Anxiety buzzed like an angry hornet’s nest in his chest, begging for him to leave.  To keep these memories buried somewhere deep, safely dead.  But defiantly he closed his eyes, knowing that to truly find his way to those responsible, he had to revisit.

After a few hard beating seconds, his imagination began reeling backwards.  To a time when he trembled in his spot, his eyes wide and watery, mouth frozen shut. He watched in horror as two teenagers took turns.  He had been praying they would stop after a few blows, like they always did.  Except this time, even with Evan on the ground, covered in his own blood and barely conscious, they just kept going. And going.  With Will cowering in the shadows. Until a car pulling up scared them away, the two kids running to jump a wire fence.

The woman in the car had shook him from his shock, helped him lift Evan into her car and drive them both to the Emergency Room, where Will was told to wait.  He said in a wide, white room, mind blanketed in grey fuzziness, alone besides an old man holding a bloodied rag to his nose.  Eventually a nurse led him to a different waiting room, one with green walls and plastic flowers. They told him it could take hours more of surgery, that things weren’t looking well.  That he had a lot of broken bones, lost a lot of blood. Will waited anyway.  He sat on an uncomfortable chair, staring unseeing at florescent lights or ugly grey carpeting. Only when he heard two nurses talking about calling the police did he abandon his post, too afraid to answer any questions.  To explain why he had just stood there like a broken doll and watched with glassy eyes. He had felt almost as responsible as the two other kids. He called his dad from a payphone when the sky began to lighten outside the windows, and left before the cops came to ask any questions.

He remembered feeling so scared, even on the silent drive home with his dad.  He hid in his bedroom for the next couple days, not contacting the police or going back to the hospital. He only prayed the police would find the two responsible, and take them away so they couldn’t track down their only witness. So that he and Evan could go back to watching shitty movies and eating shitty food and laughing at shitty jokes.

The news came after a few soft knocks on his bedroom door, from his dad standing awkwardly on the other side, after Will didn’t unlock it. Will felt his hopes shattering to the floor of his stomach, splintered glass bursting against the walls of his gut.  His heart ripped violently in two, viciously aching for the life plucked so easily right out of his hands.  There’s something deeply and morbidly unsettling about a kid dying.  It left a stale taste in Will’s mouth, and as he curled into a ball like a child, angry sobs wracking his thin body. He wanted to see that lopsided smile in his mind, instead of a bloated face, spattered in blood. He wanted his active imagination to stop replaying the horrible images. Wanted to pour bleach over each slamming memory of fierce kicks to the ribs, fists landing blow after blow, the ugly sound of jeering and laughter.

Will jumped in his skin, landing back from his memories.  Alone in his car, he felt the hot sting of tears, and behind his eyelids he pictured the same images, clear as if they’d happened yesterday. The blood, the gasping, the piggish sneering, the savage comradery between them. Will felt his blood boiling under his skin, his grip on the steering wheel growing impossibly tight, whiting knuckles. His own cowardice gnawed at him, his freezing up, watching helplessly. Not running for help, or tackling one of them, or throwing something. Just complete inaction.

Rage pounded loudly behind his ears as he threw the car into drive and raced back to their house, hands shaking on the steering wheel. He parked in front of their house, and after slamming the front door, he marched in, in search of Hannibal.  He found him in the back room, standing before the washer and dryer, folding laundry as the dryer shook with a second load.

“I remembered it,” he said without greeting, already starting to pace the length of the small room. 

Hannibal looked up, pausing only for a second before continuing his folding.

“I wasn’t aware you had forgotten,” he said.

“I was blocking most of it out.   I didn’t want to remember the finer details of their savagery.” He ran a tense hand over his mouth.

“And now?”

“Now I remember, Hannibal. Everything.” He felt his voice shaking with vehemence as he spoke.

This time will be different, he told himself.  This time he will not be a scared little boy anymore.  He’s a well-practiced hunter and will give them what they long had coming.  This time he had Hannibal at his side.

Hannibal put down the shirt he’d folded, finishing his work and turning to approach Will. There was something maddeningly alluring about seeing him like this.  Rage coloring his skin, bloodlust etched into sharp features. He brought both hands to the sides of Will’s face, forcing him to meet his eyes.            

“We will honor your friend, Will.”

Will swallowed, looking back hard. “I want the ripper with me, Hannibal. I want to build a real monument from them.” His voice was quiet, tone forceful with decision.

Hannibal pursed his lips, considering.

“It will be difficult to do and not attract Jack’s attention,” he warned, though not entirely opposed to the idea.

He ran a thumb thoughtfully over Will’s cheekbone. “We would have to make it look enough like a copy-cat,” he suggested.

Will nodded. “Whatever needs to be done.”      

Hannibal grinned before leaning forward to press his thin lips against Will’s.  Adrenaline still kicking though his veins, Will opened his mouth to kiss back. He let his teeth nip lip, hands moving to grab firm into waist.  He pressed his head forward, force between each drag of lip, sweep of tongue. Hannibal hummed low in approval, letting Will take whatever he wanted.  He soon had Hannibal walked backwards and pushed against the rumbling dryer, slotting a leg between his thighs and rhythmically grinded forward.

“I have a small surprise for you,” Hannibal said, breaking the kiss, breathiness in his voice betraying his cool exterior. 

Will tilted his head with an eyebrow slightly tented, but said nothing as Hannibal took his hand.  He gently led it to behind him, guiding his fingers lower until they brushed against something hard.  Will gasped before crushing his lips back onto Hannibal’s, fingers pushing on the smooth hardness through the fabric of Hannibal’s slacks. Hannibal broke the kiss to release a trickling moan. Will grinned, moving his head to neck and reaching under the band of Hannibal’s pants.  He grinned against his skin as he pulled the plug only half way out, it’s widest width stretching Hannibal’s entrance, before he slid it back in with a swift push.

“When did you acquire this little toy?” Will asked, arousal thick in his tone.

 Hannibal’s head lulled, and a predatory smile slipped into his words. “I’ve had it for some time. I figured you’d enjoy a small treat when you’d get home.”

Will hummed and kissed gently at the soft skin where jaw met neck.  He then pulled his hand out, made quick work of Hannibal’s button and zipper, then forcefully turned him around, pushing him against the dryer. He shoved down his pants and briefs to the floor.  Hannibal huffed, loving how impatient Will was, how readily he was taking what he wanted.  Before standing back up, Will fished into Hannibal’s pocket, finding a small package of lube, knowing his dear partner would have prepared for this.

“I had thought we would move to the bedroom,” Hannibal suggested, though he was plenty satisfied how things were going.  

“No. I want you like this.” Will responded gruffly, as he stepped back and raked his eyes over Hannibal bent over the dryer. Ass in the air, shinning silver toy peeking out behind round, perk globs. He moaned softly at the sight, as he stepped forward again, returning the warmth to Hannibal’s back. He played with the plug only a little more, pushing it in and out, before slowly pulling it out all the way, admiring the stretch and the throaty moan it dragged from Hannibal.

Will opened the button to his own jeans, letting the waistband drop to around his thighs, along with his underwear.  He didn’t slide them all the way off, impatient to get inside Hannibal.  He opened the small package of lube with his teeth, warmed the sticky slickness in his palms before finally taking his hard length in his hand.  He gave a few firm pumps as he stepped closer.

He moved his other hand to Hannibal’s stretched entrance, running lubed fingers around relaxed muscle before shoving in two fingers. He massaged them as deep as he could before pulling out, loving the tight, welcoming heat. He replaced his fingers with the head of his length, rubbing it around the entrance and then sliding in only an inch, smiling to himself as he watched Hannibal dip his head forward.  Will pulled out teasingly, earning an impatient groan from Hannibal. Will’s responding chuckle as he pressed back in was cut short by an erupting moan as Hannibal had begun moving back, stretched hole taking in as much as he could.  

Will’s grip on his waist tightened, fingers digging into the soft fabric of Hannibal’s T-shirt. Hannibal shut his eyes, deeply admiring the full stretch of Will seated inside him.  The scratch of denim against his bare thigh pulled an appreciating smile to his lips, finding Will’s almost full dress somehow more erotic than if he’d been naked.  He was too impatient to take him, too hungry with lust to even disrobe.

All thoughts were drained quickly from Hannibal as the other man began moving inside him.  At first gentle pulling and pushing, working up to a few firm thrusts between shallow ones.  Will’s panting grew, interrupted by reverent groans as his thrusts came faster, shoving deep inside Hannibal, who returned each with meeting, hungry hips.  Each sweaty movement pooled something primal between them, sophistication crumbling to give way to animalistic giving and taking. They moved as one, connected by equal shares of desperate, clawing hunger and mounting, buzzing pleasure.

Without warning, Will pulled out completely, much to the sudden annoyance of Hannibal.  He used the sides of his foot to kick Hannibal’s legs wider apart.  Without giving him time to say anything, Will shoved back in roughly. Both men groaned around this new position, Will tangling fist into Hannibal’s hair and holding him down.  Hannibal arced his back as much as he could, each thrust hitting just right.  The dryer hummed under him, pressing rattling heat up into his already fiery skin. 

Coherent thought evaded Will, pleasure overwhelming his senses, only wanting more and more.  His grip on waist and hair wavered as he felt that juicy tightening deep inside him, but he refused to slow his pace, brutally pistoning hips as waves of sizzling pleasure radiated over him.  Each responding moan from Hannibal wrapped itself around his brain, every feral groan.  He felt Hannibal’s body begin to tremor under him, so he reached the hand around his waist downward.  He clamped his fist around the base of Hannibal’s hard and leaking length. With the same move he pulled backwards on Hannibal’s hair, arcing his back as far as it’d go so he could press his lips to his ear.

“Wait,” he requested, low and gravely.

He heard Hannibal’s dry, helpless swallow, then felt him nod, and released his grip in his hair.  It only took a few more long deep thrusts before his own hips began sputtering.  He began pumping his fist over Hannibal’s length, as the wall of sizzling pressure began to surge behind his own eyes.  Moments after he felt Hannibal’s warm release coating his fingers, the clenching muscle around his own cock pushed him violently over the edge.  He came in white hot bursts, filling Hannibal and letting it leak out, dripping down both thighs.

Spent, he leaned forward, draping over Hannibal’s back.  After a few pants to regulate his breathing, he pulled slowly out.  He softly told Hannibal not to move as he went for a towel, and Hannibal’s exhausted, sated body had no problem leaning against the warm, rhythmic dryer in wait. He was nearly asleep by the time Will came back, running wet cloth up between his legs, washing away any leftover mess.

He turned Hannibal around, who tiredly let himself be moved.  He lifted two hands to either side of Hannibal’s face, pressing a much gentler kiss to his lips.  Hannibal hummed, sliding his lips along softly, blissfully.

Will rested his forehead against his. “Thank you, Hannibal.”

Hannibal grinned slowly. “My pleasure.” He said suggestion light in his voice, sliding both arms around Will’s waist and pulling him into a warm hug.

Will raised his arms to circle around his neck, letting himself be comforted.  Nuzzling his head into shoulder, he felt his early fear returning, but much less vicious. He was glad to have Hannibal with him, a soothing voice to tether him from whatever darkness from his past came hunting. A warm, welcoming body to offer the exact release he needs.

Hannibal pulled away. “May I dress?” He asked, smiling softy at Will.

Will nodded with his own smirk and stepped back. 


	15. Chapter 15

 

> “Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up”
> 
>             Veronica Roth

Molly sat in her car, parked across the street from an innocent looking blue and white house. She had arrived a few days earlier, and spent the time driving her rental car for hours around the town, checking and double checking all the spots Will or Hannibal would be.  Her heart dropped cold out of her chest when she’d finally spotted Hannibal’s unforgettable face bobbing among a crowd of shoppers between stalls of a farmers market. Icy terror prickled against her skin as her eyes followed the monster who had so brutally maimed her husband for years, dressed in well-fitting jeans and a white Henley.  He looked handsome, casual with an easy smile. She’d watched him shop, followed him with her eyes as he carried his few brown bags to an inconspicuous sedan, and drove away.  She followed him at a safe distance, heart leaping into her throat each time his eyes flicked to the rearview mirror.

She was shaking as she carefully got out of the car, scrapping the bottom of her chest for morsels of courage. She approached the door, actively forcing her feet to make their way down the stone path.  The gun Will gave her years ago laid heavy in her palm, tucked into her purse.  She had imaged this moment over and over on the flight and drive, wondering what she would do.  Would she burst in the door and just shoot that mother fucker in the head, no questions?  Would she demand to know what he did with her husband?  And what would be worse: seeing Will tied up in some dingy evil basement, or seeing him sitting at the dinner table with a glass of juice?  She couldn’t bear to think of either, but the thought of him dead somewhere, body lost at sea or twisted into some horrible murder statue made her feel absolutely sick. 

She stood before the door now, staring at faded dark blue paint.  The house looked so innocent, like it could have been on the street she grew up on. She closed her eyes and fought the desperate desire shouting in her to turn and run.  Escape while she still could, return to her son before he was left orphaned. But something burned inside her, a feeble flame burning small but strong in the back of an abandoned cave. This was something she needed to do.

She ended up just turning the brass knob, stomach dropping when she found it unlocked.  Like he was expecting her.  Terror flooded her chest as she imaged him posed on the other side of the door with a knife, waiting to pounce.  She’d heard enough stories from Will, watched him wake from enough nightmares, to know this man was truly a predator. 

Thinking of her husband forced her to focus and raise the gun out in front of her, just the way Will taught her. She gathered as much courage as she possible could, and slowly pushed the front door open.  When she saw no one, she cautiously crossed the threshold.  There was nothing in the foyer area besides a small wooden table and a decorative arm chair.  She could barely hear the trickling of classical music floating in from a different room over the pounding of her heart.

Through a thin hallway in front of her she could see tall windows illuminating a wide living room, the back of a couch, some armchairs and a wide window shoji screen. She slowly crept forward, gun first, with eyes searching all around her.  Her breath feeling too loud in her chest, blood pulsing loudly in her ear.

As she entered the bright room, a tray with an open bottle of wine and two glasses sitting out drew her attention.  Focused on this, she didn’t notice something tall and fast coming towards her, shoving into her. The back of her head knocked painfully against something hard, and her gun was suddenly out of her grip. 

Frozen and flush with the wall, head now aching, she watched with impossibly wide eyes as Hannibal Lecter stepped smoothly away from her, bending over to retrieve her dropped weapon.  

“I apologize for having to do that,” he spoke casually, rounding the couch to sit in the large arm chair opposite it.  He looked up at her with a polite smile. “But then, you’re the one who followed me into my home with a gun.” 

She didn’t respond, unmoving in her spot, fear icing over her brain, making it difficult to follow what he was saying. Her eyes followed his hand as it set the gun on the small, round table next to his chair. 

“I’m not going to hurt you, Molly.” He told her, making sure to meet her gaze.

 Stared back into those cold eyes spilled a chill down her spine.

“Sit.  Have a drink.  I image you have a number of questions.”

Her thoughts finally began stumbling. This was it, whether or not he was about to kill her, this was as close to knowing the truth as she would ever get.  She clenched her shaking hands and took a shallow breath. 

“Where’s Will?” Her voice quaked, desperation humming in the vibrations.

Hannibal looked at the door behind her, pursing his lips in consideration. 

“Gone fishing, at the moment.”

He watched with some interest as suspicion and confusion etched their way into her delicate features.   She didn’t respond, only glared back at him.  In the silence his imagination played a scene of Will’s smile brushing against those round cheeks, landing on that soft, thin neck.  He felt a deep burning envy looking at her, seeing what Will saw for those three years apart. This was who kept him from visiting, when all he had to look at was a empty glass and his memories.

She slowly shook her head. “No. No he isn’t.  Where is he?  Where do you have him?”

Hannibal sighed. “He left to gather some information a few hours ago. Should be home shortly if you’d like to wait for him.”

“You’re lying,” she breathed, throat dry.  She didn’t like what a lie implied. “Did you kill him?”  Her voice was small in the room, and she felt like a bug trapped in a filling glass.

 Each thought hurt more than the next, and suddenly it didn’t seem to matter who Hannibal was, what he was capable of.  She needed to know more than anything, more than the shallow breaths she took.  More than staying alive.

Hannibal huffed a soft laugh.  “I tried that once. A few times actually. It never seemed to work out, fortunately. I much prefer him alive these days.”

Her eyes shifted to take in the room, looking for evidence, for any kind of sign that Will was alive, that he’d been there.  It seemed impossible; none of the decorations, books, furniture seemed familiar.  But under frantic scrutiny she found small signs, only ones a lover would pick up.  A coffee cup with the spoon in it, left on the table in the dining area adjacent to the room.  How many times had she cleaned up after his breakfasts? There was a dog-eared second-hand book left on the floor by the couch, as if he’d just dropped it sleepily before a nap. Most brutal was the foot indents on the decorative pillow.  He’d always squish hers at home, and she’d knock his feet off, reminding him how much those damn things cost and how they won’t go back to their normal shape.  Tears stung her eyes, remembering how tightly she’d clung to that indent the night Jack Crawford came to her house, how viciously the sobs wracked her body.

“Do you see him here?” Hannibal asked, following her eyes as they landed on each item around the room.

“You’re..” Her voice faltered, folded over itself. She swallowed. “You’re keeping him here.  Against his will.”

He stared back at her. “He is here because he chose to be.” The honesty in his tone stung.

“That’s impossible.” She continued to stare at the indented pillow, a single tear escaping and sliding down her cheek. She smiled humorlessly. “He hated you.”

Hannibal lowered his gaze to his crossed legs, where he picked at a strand of hair on his pants. “He never lied to you, Molly. For some time he did believe he hated me. In that expansive mind of his, love and hate battled each other mercilessly for a long time.  However time and fate have freed him from that confusion.”

Something boiled inside her at his words.  He spoke as if her life with him was a blip in the plans, an inconvenient stray from the path.  She met his gaze with a glare. 

“He wasn’t confused, Mr. Lecter,” she growled, willing her voice to stop shaking. “He was happy.  _We_ were happy. I gave him a family, a real one.  You took that from him.”

She noticed the tick of annoyance in his slight frown, and wondered if now he was going to kill her, for speaking the truth. She wasn’t sure if that made her brave or stupid. 

“I took nothing, Molly.”  As Hannibal spoke, he leaned forward and tipped the wine bottle over the first then second glass.  “I didn’t force him.  He joined me because he wanted to.” 

He gestured to her to take the wine, but she only stared hard back at him.

“I don’t believe you,” venom trickled in her whisper.

Hannibal sighed and leaned back in his chair.  He swirled the glass under his nose before taking a slow, deliberate sip.

“What do you believe?” He asked patiently.

  “I know you took him.  You drugged him, o-or used your weird psychological control over him.” She felt her head shaking with the rage sizzling in her gut. “I don’t know. Y-you threatened him, or me, or Walter.  You hurt him, tied him up and drove him here.” She felt slightly crazy, speaking out loud the nightmares that had visited her over and over.

Hannibal tilted his head sympathetically and she wanted to scream.

“That sounds like a poorly written thriller novel,” he told her with a soft smile.

“Look I know the shit you did to him.” Her voice rose as she spoke. “I know how slimy, how manipulative you are.  I know how you tortured his thoughts, made him think he was crazy, believe that he killed all those people.  You poisoned his brain with that horrible disease a-and framed him for your murders. Let him get attached to that poor girl, and then you fucking killed her. I know you tried to have us killed.” Her voice shook with hate but she stood proud, thinking of how often she held Will’s shaking shoulders, how many times she had to tell him he was a _good_ man.  “I know how evil you’ve been to him because I had to pick up all the pieces after you. Watch you haunt him for years, watch him heal. So no, I don’t believe he’s here with you, happy as a fucking clam on his own volition, you son of a bitch.”

 Hannibal put down his glass carefully and stood. “You’re account of events is dreadfully one-sided, Molly.”

He paused, then slowly crossed the room to face her.  As he approached, she took a step back, watching him wearily.

“Yet it holds some truth.  I have wronged him; you are right.   He and I dealt each other our fair share of blows.  However, all that gnarled past has cleverly collected itself into an immaculate present.  One which I hold quite sacred.”

He was close now, and she could smell his expensive aftershave, study each empty plane of long cheek bone, the slight creases next to his vacant eyes.  Fear trickled through her, seeing the brutal, cold beauty there.  How easy it was to forget his true nature, hiding behind crisp, clean clothes and sophisticated manners.  She watched him watching her, heart hammering, praying he kept true to his word that he wasn’t going to hurt her.

After the moment passed he spoke. “For your own closure, you need to witness Will and I interact, to see that it is as I’ve said.”

She blinked, confused. “I-I don’t follow.”

Hannibal turned and crossed the room, pausing to retrieve his glass. He moved to stand beside the wooden paneled screen, stood in the farthest corner of the room, next to a large potted plant.

“I purchased this at an antique auction recently; the intricate carvings were done in the 1700s by an early German settler. I bought it because Will seemed taken by the trail of dogs that runs up the side here,” As he spoke, he ran the tips of his fingers over the wood appreciatively.

Realization of his intention rolled over her. “You want me to hide behind a screen and watch you two?  Now who sounds like a bad novel?”

 Hannibal chuckled genuinely as he turned to face her. “I was thinking it was more Shakespearian.”

After he spoke, they both heard the hum of an engine out front and tires over gravel.

“That’s his car, Molly.” He tilted his head. “This is the only way for you to know for sure.  He’s had no warning, no idea that you are here.  Witness his freedom, see the change in him.”

She bit her lip, heart hammering out of control at the idea of Will approaching the house. Against her better judgment, she found herself moving towards the partition, towards Hannibal.


	16. Chapter 16

 

>  “The terrible thing is that it's impossible to tear the past out by the roots.” 
> 
>         Leo Tolstoy, _Anna Karenina_

Hannibal sat in his chair, taking a sip from his glass as he heard Will coming in through the kitchen door.  Keys, a few plastic bags and his jacket clattered against the granite counter tops. Approaching footsteps brought Will to the edge of the room, wearing a soft grey t-shirt and jeans.  

“Starting without me?” he asked, already smiling, nodding to the wine.

 He held onto the wall as he toed off his shoes at the corner of the carpet.

“In celebration of your return,” Hannibal responded, raising his glass.

As Will padded socked feet over the white carpet, Hannibal stood, only to be immediately pushed backwards into his chair. Will followed him down, lowering his knees to straddle Hannibal’s lap. His hands snaked to tangle in the soft hair at the base of his neck, titling the other man’s head up to meet his crushing lips. He pressed himself flush against Hannibal’s chest, whose hands landed to hold the top of his thighs, right below his ass, gripping tightly. Will hummed appreciatively into Hannibal’s mouth, sliding his tongue over lip.

After a few tantalizing moments, Hannibal pulled away.

“I take it your trip was successful?” He practically purred, running his fingers lazily up and down the side of Will’s jeans.

Will shrugged and a smile tugged at his lips. “I got an address from a post office worker.  A flash of smile seems to go a long way here.”  As he spoke he brushed back a few strands of hair that had fallen over Hannibal’s forehead.

Will leaned down to continue what he’d started earlier, but Hannibal only offered a couple short kisses before pulling away again, earning an annoyed grunt from Will.

“I thought we were past the whole sex embargo thing?” He grumbled.

Hannibal grinned, leaning forward to slowly drag his lips against Will’s one last time, before pushing gently against his legs to stand up. 

“I’m afraid we have a slight issue on our hands,” Hannibal told him as he stood.

Will’s brow furrowed. “What is it?”

“It would be more appropriate to ask ‘who is it’,” Hannibal responded, leaning down to retrieve his glass.

Will’s eyes widened slightly. “Did you find Matheson?” he asked quickly.

Hannibal stepped away.“No.” His eyes flicked down. “Unfortunately, this isn’t about…that.  You’ve actually taken this person off the menu.” 

 Will’s jaw clenched. “What kind of an issue do we have, Hannibal?” His tone darker than before.

He followed Hannibal’s gaze to the second glass of wine, sitting untouched on the table.  His heart tightened at the sight, and when he looked back up, it dropped into his gut as his eyes moved past Hannibal to land on the newly emerged Molly.

“H-how?” Will’s voice was caught in a whisper. A tight pit in his chest, he looked panicked from Molly’s tearstained face to Hannibal’s watchful gaze.

“She found us,” Hannibal said heavily. 

He was not enjoying the look of horror in Will’s face, nor this interruption threatening their domestic bliss.  Though he had to admit he was curious as to how this scene would play out.  What Will could finally say to her. He took a seat on the far side of the couch, crossing his legs to watch the exchange.

Though at the moment, neither seemed to be saying anything.  Rather, they stared at each other, Molly’s eyes streaming.  She took a few hesitant steps forward, to stand directly in front of Will. Somewhere in the back of her heart, she wondered if she should fear him now, now that she saw him embracing that killer.  But all she could feel was cold relief, an immense pull to be closer to him, to touch him. To hold him and let the past few months flood past them, over them, through them.  For it to wash away all the loneliness, all the haunting.  He was alive.  Alive.  The word pulsed in her mind over and over, hitting her like a baseball bat.  Alive.

Will was alive, this whole time.  This whole time.

The empty cavity in her chest ached at seeing him now, unharmed, happy in the arms of someone else.  She felt silly, embarrassed, and her desperate quest to find him and save him went dry in her heart.  He didn’t need saving, he didn’t want it.  Or her.  Out of all the scenarios, she had refused to even consider him leaving her as one of them.  Leaving her for him, for the killer who ruined his life.  Her heart, which had been so brutally broken by the news of his death, seemed to melt right out of her chest.

“Molly,” Will started, but was unable to think of anything to say.  How could he explain what she had just seen?  How could he possibly explain how intricately his soul wound around Hannibal’s?

“Why?” She whispered, closing her eyes.

When he didn’t respond she opened them again. “Why?” She demanded, more forcefully.

Will looked lost, frown deep in his lips, eyes searching for answers. “This…this was always how things would end for me.”

She shook her head slowly from side to side, unable to process his words. “Always, Will?  _Always_?  What about when we got married, were you always supposed to end up with him?” She shot a vicious glare in Hannibal’s direction.

“I’m sorry, Molly.  I didn’t…I didn’t know then.  I wanted to be the person I was when we were together.  I wanted to be your husband.”

His words pulled hot tears to the brinks of her eyes.

“It was just never...That was never really who I was.”

She let her tears fall now, not even bothering to wipe them. “It was, Will.  It was. I knew you.  We were happy.” 

He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “I was haunted.  I was broken, you know that. You saw it. I was only half myself.”

She laughed humorlessly. “Oh so he’s your other half now?  This psychotic cannibal?”

“Molly-”

“Do you love him?” She interrupted, unable to keep the hurt from her voice.

He was quiet, his heart sinking. He slid his glance to study Hannibal, sitting on the couch, watching their exchange. There was a time when he’d fantasized about slitting his throat, a time when he hated him more than anything else.  Then there were times, in his hate, when he’d remember Bedelia’s words, remember Hannibal holding his head, his hands lingering on his skin. Then the only thing he hated more than Hannibal was himself, for wanting him regardless.  For realizing how tortuously connected they were.      

Hannibal held his gaze, offering support through his look. Will looked back to Molly.

“I do,” Will finally said, hating the blow it dealt to the woman he once loved.

She nodded slowly, as if deciding what to do next.  She turned to Hannibal. “Then I’d like that drink now.”

-

The three sat in silence, an odd triangle.  Hannibal and Will sitting on either end of the couch, Molly empting her second glass, sat on the armchair across from them.  She was having a hard time accepting the reality in front of her, wondering where in her life could she have possibly fucked up this badly to be sitting in a room with her husband and his cannibal lover.

Hannibal stood up, taking the empty bottle from the room. While he was gone Molly caught Will’s eye intently.  She mouthed ‘are we safe?’ wanting to ask while Hannibal was out of the room. 

If Will’s heart didn’t hurt so much, he would have found it endearing, how she was still grouping herself and him together, against Hannibal. 

He nodded with a small smile. “Yes. He’s agreed to leave the ghosts of our pasts alone.”

Molly’s heart tightened, realizing Will was calling her a ghost.  His past.

“And you trust him?” She asked.

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?” Will offered, realizing it sounded a bit harsher than he’d intended it to.  

Before she could respond, Hannibal had returned with an open bottle, topping off the three glasses before setting it on the table, and sitting down.  There was silence in the room as she took a full gulp of her drink, Hannibal bristling only slightly at her not appreciating the expensive bottle. Will didn’t like seeing her like this.  She looked halfed, like he had been when they were together.

“So tell us, Molly.  How did you track us down?” Hannibal asked, though he was pretty sure he knew.  It wasn’t coincidence she found them poking around in this prolific town of Will’s past.

“Evan’s case opening back up.” She said, trying to choose her words carefully, not wanting to give up too much. “I knew if Will was still alive he’d come here.  You were a surprise though.”

Hannibal watched her as she spoke, could see she was holding something back.

“Why would you be so sure he lived?” he asked, tilting his head.

"I just knew.  I’m his wife, I would know.”

 He watched the hesitancy, then the lie.

 He didn’t look away as he spoke. “Ex.”

 Her chest rose. “Ex.” She was expressionless in her agreement.

“Molly, were you working with anyone to find us?” Will asked, trying to defuse the tension, guide the conversation away from whatever war of wills the two were having.

She looked at him, then down at her lap.  She wasn’t sure if she wanted to share about Alana.  Would they go after her? 

“We promise we will not hurt whoever it is.  We just have to know that we’re safe.”  He didn’t like sharing the words, knowing they were hurting her.  Putting her on the other side.

Hannibal prickled slightly at his promise, but said nothing. Silence ticked by as she deliberated.

“Alana Bloom invited me to her house to show me her research.  She saw your work in Maine, Ohio and Florida.  But she doesn’t know I’m here.”

"We didn’t do anything in Ohio,” Will told her gently.

“So it’s true then, you killed those other men, in Maine and Florida?” She asked, accusation staining in her voice.

“They were bad men, Molly.”

“You really have changed, haven’t you?  The Will Graham I knew wouldn’t have done that.” She couldn’t keep the hurt from her voice.   

“The Will Graham you knew did do that.  Several times over, before you met him.” Hannibal offered, his tone conversational.

She rolled her eyes but said nothing.  Maybe she really didn’t know Will.  The thought churned her stomach.

“So Alana is after us?” Will asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.

“No.  Well, kind of.  She’s just terrified.  The FBI thinks she’s paranoid, and her wife does too. She doesn’t know I’m here.”

Will’s brow furrowed. “Why didn’t you tell her?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t know what to expect when I got here. She’s out for blood, I’m not.”

Will cringed at her expression, knowing full well it was going to be a task and a half to convince his dear lover not to hunt down Alana.  He looked over at Hannibal, recognizing the peaceful mask he donned around everyone else. The mask he used to sit across from every week, the one he thought was his friend at one point.  As handsome a face, he much preferred his life as it were now, behind the veil.

 “What are you going to tell her?” Hannibal asked.

Molly didn’t look at him when he spoke, turning her gaze to Will.

“Are you happy?” she asked him, voice stronger than it had been.

 Will met her eyes, and tried to convey as much honesty as possible.

“Yes.”

She nodded, her bangs falling in her face as she leaned forward to put down her wine glass.

“Then I’ll tell her nothing. I’ll tell her to give up the search, that she’s being paranoid.”

Will was already shaking his head in confusion. “Why?”

She sighed, eyes downturned. “Because you’re happy.  And ok.  And I don’t want to be the one to take that from you.”

“Molly-”

"This isn’t me rolling over, Will.  It’s just-.” She sighed again, and shrugged. “I want you gone.  I want to move on, heal, and never see you again. I don’t want regret to follow me, wondering if I was spiteful to ruin your life like you’ve ruined mine.  Unlike you, I don’t want blood on my hands.”

Will watched her speak, heart breaking as it warmed, seeing again for the first time how unbelievably strong she was.  He had no idea how to convey that.  How to share the worlds of gratitude towards her.

“Thank you, Molly.” The words fell flat.

* * *

 

Hannibal waited all of two seconds to speak after she walked out the front door.

“We have to kill her.” His words sounded both casual and final. 

Will’s stomach lurched around the idea. “No.” Finality, without Hannibal’s coolness.

Hannibal set his wine glass down, eyes following Will, who walked to look out the window of the sliding glass door.  The air outside was electric, thick, dark clouds rolling in off the sea.   

“Alright, Alana then. She’s ‘out for blood’,” Hannibal countered, trying to keep down the fiery lick of anger blossoming at Will’s outright rebuttal.

Will turned only briefly from the window to shoot a warning glare. “No.” 

Hannibal crossed his legs, pointedly breathing slowly. 

He waited for the idea to marinate more in Will’s mind, for him to see why it was necessary.  “We can’t leave with untied loose ends, Will.” Hannibal offered, expecting Will to turn back from the window and nod. To agree, to see reason. 

Instead Will continued to look away, a storm brewing cold in his chest.

“This isn’t up for discussion, Hannibal.” He hated saying the words, knew how bitter they’d taste to Hannibal.

“I wasn’t aware I had to ask permission to take necessary measures to ensure our livelihood.” To the laymen’s ear his tone sounded nonchalance, but Will picked up on the subtle frustration, the dark petulancy. 

He turned, his own anger growing hot in his chest. “They’re people, Hannibal.  You can’t just kill anyone you want when life becomes inconvenient.”

“Clearly we have a fundamental difference of opinions, however-”

"This isn’t a casual discussion on the semantic of morality.  Alana was my friend. She’s nonnegotiable.”

“Molly then-”

“Hannibal. Don’t.” Will warned.

Hannibal paused for a beat before trying a different route. “She threatens our way of life.”

Will laughed without humor turning back to the window as he spoke. “Oh I don’t think _that’s_ why you feel threatened.”

Hannibal balked, head pushing back. “You believe I’m jealous of her?” He let his anger seep into his words this time.

“It wouldn’t be the first time your jealousy ended in a plan to have her dead.” Will responded, recalling the fury he’d had in what felt like a life time ago.  When he had glared through the glass wall, listening to Hannibal talk about sicking the Red Dragon on his family. The more they talked now, the more he felt a glass wall rising between them again.

Hannibal took a calming breath, attempting to back petal. To find stability, find the composure Will so infuriatingly stripped from him constantly. He stood, walked to stand behind Will, to attempt to find a middle ground that seemed to be quickly crumbling between them.

“She knows we’re alive, Will.” It was as close to pleading he’d ever thought he’d come. “It’s only a short conversation away from Jack knowing.”

Will sighed, feeling Hannibal warm at his back but refusing to turn around, to give in.

“That’s not a good enough reason to kill someone, Hannibal.  Especially not my ex-wife.”  He spoke with decisiveness, knowing what it did to Hannibal. 

Hannibal took the slightest of steps back as he spoke. “Our future together, the peace you asked from me.  That isn’t a good enough reason to secure what they could easily take from us?” Hannibal asked, trying to keep the bitter emotion from leaking into his self-control.

Will finally turned around and met his gaze, with a look that felt as if they were worlds apart.  As if suddenly there was something so obviously dividing between them, an impenetrable difference.

“No. They aren’t.”

Hannibal hated the words, hated what they meant.  That the lives of their past were more important to Will than their potential future together. He had always known this was how Will viewed the word, but had assumed that when it really mattered, he’d see reason. To watch Will choose his stubborn morality over himself stung hot betrayal into his chest.  He stood before him not saying a word, studying the split in Will’s torn expression.

“Will you try to stop me?” Hannibal finally asked, parroting words he’d asked a few months ago. 

The question crushed against Will, shooting slivers of broken glass over him.  He couldn’t.  He couldn’t answer him, stop him, look at him.  As he lowered his look to the floor, he felt worlds collapsing in his head, a future of Spanish wine and cobblestoned allies vanishing.  Watched every morning he’d spent waking to strong arms and brown eyes circling a drain in his heart. He looked back at Hannibal’s imploring eyes until he couldn’t, turning to look back out the window.  It was a dismissal, the only answer he felt capable to give.  

Will stood at the window for hours after Hannibal left, the room feeling entirely empty with his absence.


	17. Chapter 17

> **“** At the temple there is a poem called 'Loss' carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it.” 
> 
>        Arthur Golden,  _Memoirs of a Geisha_

It had been four days in that empty beach front home.  The beauty of the rolling waves against sand shinning under afternoon sunlight was pale through Will’s blank stares.  He roamed the vacant rooms, seeming to look for Hannibal in the places he’d left.  He didn’t leave the house, couldn’t really without the car Hannibal drove away in.  He ordered crappy take out, curled against the sofa’s pillows as he ate, thinking how disgusting Hannibal would find the meal.

He didn’t know where Hannibal was, what he was doing, or when he’d be back.  After their fight Hannibal had swiftly gathered a few things, and Will’s tongue stayed heavy in his mouth as he watched Hannibal walk out the door.  Most likely on his way to kill Alana. He knew Molly was off the table, he’d made that clear enough.  Plus killing his ex-wife out of jealousy seemed too vulgar, ineloquent for Hannibal. But someone from their past, someone he promised death to? That seemed perfectly within Hannibal’s realm of possibilities. He knew Hannibal was mad, he knew he was hurt.  The last time he felt this way, he’d left behind a house full of bodies bleeding out, including Will and Abigail on his kitchen floor. The thought of that night twisted something cold in his chest.

 In those lonely days he let himself cry for the first time since he could remember. In grey rooms he’d mourned this barren rift between them, the burning love that seemed to scorch all logic and boundaries.  The inevitable distance between their minds. He remembered when he first tried to leave Hannibal, when his departing words tricked him into giving himself up. _You delight, I tolerate._ And that was just the thing, wasn’t it.  How could he have possibly believed that they could stay together with such fundamental differences? Suddenly their separation seemed even more eminent, unavoidable as their coming together.  He felt sick with shame for even hoping, for dreams of a life far away from them.  Spanish fantasies leaving his mind, dropping to the dusty floors of each empty room.

On the fourth night - or was it the fifth? Each day blended into each other like spilled water on a painting, all the colors running into each other.  Whichever day it was, Will had drunk nearly half a handle of whiskey, and found himself buzzing with negative energy.  Even without Hannibal there, he still had enough information to go find the men who killed Evan.  The idea of hunting alone rubbed against his raw heart, but if he had to do it alone, so be it.  He came back to this godforsaken town for a reason, and damn if he was going to sit around and not exact his long waited revenge.

He only had the one address, Ryan Barlow’s, but he was sure he could drag out the other from his prey. Gun tucked into the back of his pants, hidden under a rain jacket, Will walked the five miles to Barlow’s house through light rain. Night had already fallen, and he moved with such deadly determination he felt like a poltergeist sneaking through the dark, revenge the only tangible thought his mind could latch onto.

FBI training still in his muscles, he kicked in the front door with well-practiced ease.  Will passed bright lights reflecting in dark windows as he walked through the small house, gun held in front. He found his target in the next room, cowering in the corner behind a dining table, holding a gold club in his shaking grip.  Will immediately recognized those pale blue eyes, the long features and thin chin.  He couldn’t keep the snarl from his lip as he stilled to stand.

“Drop it,” He ordered, as if to a dog.

 The man did as he was told with careful movements. He crouched low, hands out in front of him, pressing into the corner of the room.

“Please, please,” he begged, eyes closing.

“Do you know who I am?” Will asked harshly, ignoring his pleas.

The other man only whimpered as a response.  Will emphatically cocked the gun, drawing a frightened yelp.

“No! No I don’t- I’m sorry.  I’m sorry, please. Please I have a family, I-”

“Shut up,” Will growled.

He walked around the table, facing Barlow. Rage boiled beneath his skin at the sight of the man.  This was the tough, ferocious killer from his childhood? This man who he was once so afraid of now brought to a blubbering mess on his knees.

“Look at me,” he barked, and the man obeyed with watery eyes. “Do you really not remember me?”

Barlow looked blearily up at him, studying without a hint of recognition. 

Will’s lip curled as he secured his gun back into position. “I was Evan Lester’s friend.”

The man’s eyes widened, a new grimace on his face as the tears continued.  He tried to shake his head as he spoke. “I-I don’t-”

“I was there, Ryan.  I watched you kill him!” Will’s voice raised as he spoke, to near shouting. He felt unstable for the first time that night, feeling the gun shaking in his hands. Wishing with a hallow aching Hannibal was there at his back.

The man swallowed hard, lowering his head. “I don’t remember anyone else being there,” he said so quietly Will could barely hear him.

“You beat him to death!” he annunciated each word, repositioning his grip as he stared down the barrel.

The man dropped his head into his hands, began sobbing quietly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He managed to get out. “I think of him every day. I’m so sorry.”

Will hated the inkling of sympathy tricking into his heart. This wasn’t the cold blooded killer he’d come to slay.  There was no righteous avenging begging to be dealt here, just a pathetic man. He looked around the room and saw photo after photo of Barlow with a smiling woman and daughter.  Will felt sick, the idea of taking another father from a girl deeply unsettling.

“Shut up,” he finally order, stopping the steady stream of whimpering. “Where’s Matheson? I know he was with you that night.”

The other man looked back helplessly. “Nicky?  He’s dead. He killed himself two years after…that night.”

Will shook his head, taking a forceful step forward. “Don’t lie to me!”

“I’m not! I’m not, I sweat it!” the man shrunk backwards. “Right after high school graduation. He was haunted by what we did; it changed him.”

“And you?” Will smiled humorlessly. “It didn’t haunt you?”

“It did.  It still does. B-But Brenda got pregnant right after that, and I-I couldn’t- please, please.  Believe me, if I could take it back, if I could-”

“He was sixteen,” Will interrupted, hearing his own voice break over the words.

Barlow shut his eyes. “I know.  We didn’t mean to kill him. What we did was wrong. So wrong.  I don’t know how we did it.  When I look back it feels like someone else’s memories.”

Will watched his face flood with new tears, feeling his gut tighten in knots at the pitiful sight.

“But please, sir, please I have a little girl, this would…she would-” he couldn’t finish his sentence, interrupted by his own wrack of sobs.

Will looked over at the pictures again. Rows of toothy smiling. Her next to a bike, in front of birthday candles, under a Christmas tree. He closed his eyes. This wasn’t who he came to kill.

Gun still trained on the man, he walked over to the long table holding the pictures, and lifted the cordless phone off its stand. He threw it to the man. 

“Call the police.” He growled. “Confess everything, in full detail. If you say one word, one syllable out of place, a bullet goes through your neck before the police can even get in their cars.  If you mention me in the future at all, to anyone, I will know.  I will find you with ease and end you.  Understand?”

Barlow squeezed his eyes shut. “Please, please-”

“Shut up!” Will shouted over him. “You don’t get your happy ending after what you did.  Do you think Evan wanted a future?  A family? This is retribution, Ryan. This is mercy. Take it now, or it will be revoked with pleasure.” 

There was darkness behind his words, and the man, holding back sobs, pressed the numbers with shaking hands.

* * *

Will stood in the middle of the small kitchen, stopping the track of mud over faded linoleum floors.  He was soaked down to the bones, hair plastered to his forehead and rain dripping off his heavy jeans. The storm had picked up during his walk back, and he moved through the pounding weather unseen by the passing cars. He was grateful for the rain, as it washed away each of the footprints he pressed into the mud seconds after he’d made them. 

Safely home, he felt nothing but.  The hollowness returned to him with full force after shutting the door, abandonment seeming to hang in the still air around him. He shucked off his dripping coat, toed off muddy shoes, and continued to leave a trail of wet clothes as he made his way to the main bedroom, into the shower. 

He cleaned himself quickly, mind coated in a dull numbness.  He didn’t want to think, want to imagine what could happen.  If the police would come rushing to him, if one of his neighbors saw him walking around like a lost dog in the rain.  He definitely didn’t want to think about what Hannibal would have done, what he would say.  How he would slay where Will spared, how he’d be bewildered by Will’s empathy, and how he would comfort somehow regardless, take him in his arms and tell him nothing he could do would make him love him less.

With a tenderness in his chest, he rummaged through the drawers for clothes.  He pulled on Hannibal’s dark red sweater, stepped into his sleep pants left folded neatly next to a stack of Will’s clothes. Will hugged himself, bringing the soft fabric to his face.  He inhaled deeply, letting the familiar, spiced scent wash over him, imagining just for a second that Hannibal were there with him. 

He lowered himself onto Hannibal’s side of the bed, laying on top of downy comforter. He never imagined this would be how things ended between them.  A bloody mess? More than likely.  Off in the sunset, hand in hand? An aching daydream.  Will missing those impossibly gently eyes and the soft curve of accent, feeling as if an entire chunk of his own beating heart had been carved out? It seemed unreal.  That he would fall so irrevocably in love with Hannibal, and that Hannibal would be the one leaving him.  That he would choose his own bloodlust, his own ticking survival mechanism over Will.

Will closed his eyes against their stinging. He imagined Alana and Margot, sitting up happy in their homes.  He felt disgusted at the images that followed, the blood that would soak into expensive carpets, the screams no one would hear, the child left abandoned.  All at the hands of his beloved.  His stomach curdled at the idea. He had really thought he’d be enough for him? Why did Molly have to come?

The thought of Molly pinched his grief tighter. He saw her in his mind’s eye, tearstained face, betrayal in her grimace.  He suddenly wasn’t crying for Hannibal, but the tears he never gave himself for losing her.  He couldn’t fight whatever will of God it was to bring him to Hannibal’s feet, but he could still mourn the passing of a well-loved relationship.  Grief wrapped its gnarled fingers around her memory, of their house, of their nights spent surrounded by dogs and bliss.  He had moved on, no longer loved her, but still missed how light his heart floated when she was all he wanted.

He rolled over on his side, slid open his eyes and saw Hannibal, stomach jumping at the sight.  A flickering image, soft around the edges.  It had been a long time since loneliness brought him back to Will.

“Hannibal,” he spoke the word as if in prayer, focused on the vision.

There was that tick of a smile, those soft, knowing eyes.

“I’ve been translating since you’ve left,” he heard the tears in his voice. “It’s slow and tedious.  But line by line of old poetry I’m learning you.”

He watched Hannibal reach out, brush hair from Will’s forehead.  His heart jumped around the ghost of Hannibal’s hand skimming his skin.

Finally, Hannibal spoke. “‘There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.’”

Will shut his eyes, drinking in the familiar tone, heart aching around the words he’d dug out of Dante’s curling Italian lines. 


	18. Chapter 18

>  “Be with me always-take any form-drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” 
> 
>          Emily Bronte, _Wuthering Heights_

“A confession! Can you imagine?” A shrill voice asked into cell phone. 

Will’s hearing perked up, and he turned his head slightly to better catch what was being said.

“Apparently the guilt got to him! He called the cops and just like that they came n' took him away.  No I wasn't, but Roy’s cousin saw the whole thing. Police cars speedin’ all over town left and right…I _know_.”

“Sir?”

Will blinked, focus pulled from eavesdropping, back to the young woman standing behind the cash register.

“What?” he asked, slightly disoriented.

“I asked to see your ID,” she told him, southern drawl layering over her words.

He furrowed his brow, not having been carded in while. As he fished out his wallet, tension tightened in his chest.  What if she recognized him from the news? Maybe Barlow gave a description, or perhaps the FBI released new information about him.  Anxiety fluttering in his heart he handed her the fake driver’s license Hannibal had made for him. A few hard beating seconds passed as she looked from picture to Will’s face back to picture.  Finally she smile and handed it back to him.

“Is your name really Peter Peterson?” She asked with a smile, as she ran the bottle of single malt through the scanner.

Will nodded, voice slightly hoarse from lack of use. “Someone thought it’d be funny.” He tried to offer a believable smile, which mostly came across as a grimace.

She laughed awkwardly in response as he handed her the cash.  The woman behind him had ended the conversation on the phone, but on his drive back he picked up the free local paper, reading the second largest headline. 

>  Case Closed! Evan Lester Gets Justice

He smirked at the word choice, remember with a small piercing his and Hannibal’s conversation in Miami only a few weeks prior.

* * *

Hannibal felt like he’d been driving for much more than a few days.  He hadn’t left the road once on his trek back to Baltimore, save for his brief stop at the Bloom-Verger residence.  He had had ample time alone to ruminate over what was to be done about Alana. Conventional wisdom gave murder as the obvious answer, like he’d intended since that rainy night all those years ago.  Part of him argued against that, for purely logistic reasons. It would draw unwanted attention from Jack; Alana rings a bell and suddenly the Ripper comes running. He could make it look like an accident, but Jack wasn’t stupid…at least not in the commonly accepted definition anyway.

His grip on the steering wheel tightened as an invasive thought pushed into his mind- that he didn’t really care if Jack became suspicious, that he really contemplated sparing her only for Will.  That idea was infuriating to him, ticked hot frustration through his veins. Why should he suddenly mind the will of others? Spare where he intended to slay? His compassion for Will seemed blinding, holding him down like Mason Verger’s restrains.  The great power of the ripper leashed to a man who could emotionally connect with a butterfly. Suddenly Hannibal was no longer a god among man, a man among pigs, but brought down to the level of the common.  Worried over something as magnificent and trivial as love. As a child he used to pretend he was like the others, imagine what it felt like to care for those around him.  He eventually gave it up after finding it boring and tedious, and for all the years following he’d seen it as nothing more than child’s play. And yet now, as he drove down dark empty roads crowded with the shadow of trees, a bitter sadness clung to his lungs when he thought of Will, a beating thirst to return to him, an alarming worry that he would not accept him back after this.

In the end, as he parked along the parameter of the back woods to the massive estate, he hadn’t come to a conclusion yet.  Indecisiveness was never a comfortable sensation in himself, so as he walked stealthily through the trees and dead leaves and let himself in through the back stables, he felt irritable with himself.  Which didn’t bode well for Alana at all.  

He walked casually through their home, distantly admiring the decorative choices.  It had been a long time since he was around such lavished decor. He wandered into the grand living room, illuminated by warm light off several ornate lamps, where he took a seat on the dark red couch and waited.  He could hear only one set of footsteps above him, and he recognized them as Alana’s.  After a few minutes of impatience got up and he made his way to the kitchen to fix himself a coffee from the French press sitting out on the marble countertop.

As he stirred in a splash of cream, he listened to her light shuffle down the grand front stairs, crossing a sitting room into the kitchen. Wearing nothing but a silky, dark blue bathrobe and a towel around her hair, she almost didn’t notice him. He brought the steaming cup to his mouth with eyes trained on her, and watched her jump out of her skin, dark realization and terror caught in her throat as she drank in her situation.

 “Hello, Alana,” He greeted pleasantly.

* * *

Will was on the floor, he knew that much.  When he closed his eyes the world spun in kaleidoscopes around him, so he kept them open as he rolled onto his back.  He gazed blearily up at the ceiling, walls shifting in dizzying patterns.  He tried to remember how he’d ended up spread out on the carpet, his thoughts sloshed slowly as he recounted the events of the evening. Greasy take-out, then trying to get the damn radio to work, before abandoning it for his newly purchased bottle.  And somewhere between then and now intoxication creeped through his bloods like an approaching fog.  But he didn’t really mind the fuzzy darkness it brought, and besides the dull aching in his forehead, it was rather pleasant to just lazily stare unseeing upward.

The alcohol didn’t stop the pain from seeping into his bones, from vibrating against his rib-cage. But at least all the painfully clear thoughts had been blunted, slowed in their rapid, repetitive tracks. It made his hurting feel distant, as if it were in someone else’s chest. Maybe Hannibal’s. He wondered if the man still had a heart, or if he’d already dug it out of himself.  Replaced it with a blood soaked visit to the past.

* * *

She stood frozen, tensing like a trapped feral cat, and looked at him as if he were her most battered nightmare come to life.  She thought of the gun she kept next to her bed, the one she used to carry around the house until Margot coaxed her into leaving it in their room. Her wife had left to pick up their son from preschool, and she prayed they stayed away for as long as possible.

“Hannibal,” her whisper was hoarse, barely believing what was before her.

Her eyes flicked to all the exits near her, as she cursed her bad leg for making her an easy prey to this carnivorous animal.

“Luckily for you, Alana, I’ve made promises newer than the one I left you with.  Ones that leave you untouched.” He told her.

He was surprised at how apathetic he felt looking at her.  He remember his promise to kill her long ago, and the artful rage that had accompanied that.  She’d kept him locked in a glass jar, then looked on happily as he was hog tied like an animal.  The indignity she brought him used to burn like hot coals in a hearth.  But now?  He didn’t find her in need of immediate termination.  She was more suddenly someone who has unnecessarily gotten between himself and Will.

With an uneven gate, she moved carefully to stand on the other side of the center counter.

“Will?” She didn’t keep the hope from her tone, even in her cold terror.

Hannibal nodded. “I won’t do you the discourtesy of lying.  He and I have become something of an item,” he told her, a smile ticking at his lips.

Her brow furrowed, face etched in a grimace. 

“What have you done to him?” Her voice seemed to find its footing a she grew braver by each word.

Hannibal brought the cup to his lips. “It’s more psychologically fascinating to ask what has he done to me.” He told her, before taking another sip.

She only stared hard back at him, slowly trying to navigate around his possible wordplay, the double meanings he was so found of.

“Unfortunately I cannot stay long,” he lamented, placing his porcelain cup down with a quiet clink. “I have dinner plans with an old friend. I only stopped by the give you a message.”

She straightened her posture as he rounded the wide counter, focusing on her with a predatory gaze. She took the slightest of steps backwards as he came to stand before her, but she boldly met his cold stare.

"You will give up your searching. Will and I will disappear and you will never hear from us again. Fair?” There was a threat lurking in his words, running ice over her skin.

She swallowed hard, her voice in whisper. “How can I be sure you won’t come back?”

He considered this for a moment Then, “If I still wanted you dead, Alana, you would be.”

With that, he brushed past her, walking towards the exit. When she spoke, he paused his  crossing through the doorway.

“He really has changed you,” her tone was mostly of disbelief.

She couldn’t see his responding smile as he continued out of her home, her life, for good.

* * *

Night had wrapped its warm arms around Southport by the time Hannibal slowed the car to a park in front of their house.  On the drive home the radio informed him of how the Lester case was closed, lighting a low burning panic in him.  Was Will caught somehow in his attempts for mercy? Or was the confession inconvenient for him, and would he try to kill Barlow while he was in custody?  As Hannibal drove, and more details on the arrest were reported, he came to the unsettling conclusion that this was somehow Will’s design.  It almost made him smile, how his empathy for others colored his judgement so drastically, sparing the life of the man he’s hated for years. He supposed in that regard, he and Barlow were similar.

He let himself in through the unlocked front door, looking around cautiously, but found no one. He roamed each empty room with a heart sinking like a heavy stone through still water, realizing that however Will chose to end things with Ryan Barlow, he seemed to do the same with Hannibal. Upon considering, Hannibal realized with a clammy sickness that it wouldn’t have made sense for Will to stay, to sit like a waiting duck for the police or FBI.  And yet Hannibal still felt tidal waves of longing as he passed through the bedroom, looking at rumpled sheets and clothes left on the floor. A panicking loneliness blanketed him as he slowly made his way through the kitchen, searching for some left behind clue as to how to find him, where they could meet up. He found nothing but a few crumbs left on the counter.

_I’m not going to miss you. I’m not going to look for you. I don’t want to know where you are or what you do.  I don’t want to think about you anymore._

Will’s words spoken years ago came rushing back, whispering in his ear as if he’d just said them.  They felt relevant as ever to Hannibal, who sifted through the bones of what was left of their relationship, evidence littered around the house.  A pile of books, a few empty wine bottles, the fleece blanket they’d wrapped around each other as they watched the sun peak blazing over the horizon. As he stood there in the kitchen, he could picture the ghost of Will walking in through the back door with sand still on his feet, see him standing at the sink to wash dishes, see him asleep on that terrible white sofa, glasses dropped to the floor beside him.  He felt silly for even returning, for holding onto something Will had already so thoroughly abandoned.

Hannibal wandered to where he last saw Will, looking out the back window. He stopped to stand in the same spot, peering out at the morning pushing itself into what was left of the night. And there, just a speck in the miles of stretching sand to either side, was a head full of wind-blown curls, a body sat with arms draped over legs, watching the same morning breaking in streaks of pinks and orange  over the sea.


	19. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

> “He woke her then, and trembling and obedient, she ate that burning heart out of his hand. Weeping, I saw him then depart from me. Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for her? Find nourishment in the very sight of her? I think so. But would she see through the bars of his plight, and ache for him?”
> 
>                  Dante Alighieri, La Vita Nuova, Chapter III, First Sonnet.

A few seabirds wailed a welcoming to Hannibal as he stepped out bare feet onto the soft sand which had cooled overnight. The warm air was rustled with cool, salty breezes off the water, and something like a velvet melody played in Hannibal’s heart as he calmly made his way down the beach, watching Will’s head tick an inch to the side as he approached. He stopped only a few feet away, looked out at the ocean with Will, admiring the blue horizon blending into the far edge of the sea, the blazing orange splashing across the clouds. Hannibal closed his eyes, listened to the push and hush of waves rhythmically rushing and ebbing, deeply breathing in the freshness of the morning.

“You stayed,” Hannibal said at length, opening his eyes to land on Will’s squared shoulders.

Will’s head dropped to his chest. “Where else would I go?” His words came quiet, voice heavy from a night of drinking.

When Hannibal didn’t respond, Will sighed and heaved himself to his feet.  He turned around, and Hannibal’s heart lurched at the sight. He immediately could read each tearstained night in Will’s face, each booze smothered cry in his wrinkled clothes. He could see Will’s love there, his longing, his regret, read his own pain mirrored, etched like a marble statue into his skin.

“I’m sorry, Will.” He told him, honesty seeping in his voice. He took a slow step forward. “I shouldn’t have left.”

Will didn’t step back, but his frown deepened and he looked away, down at the sand sticking to Hannibal’s feet.

“I didn’t think you’d be back,” he confessed, tone cold, flicking his eyes to the side, willing any errant tears to remain in place.

“Where else would I go?” Hannibal parroted, eyes trained so intently on Will’s unreadable expression.

He took another slow step forward, gaging Will's reaction. He stood close now, head hovering, eyes trained on Will's lips. "Am I welcomed back?"

Will reached hesitantly up, shaking hands gripping into the fabric at Hannibal’s shoulder. He seemed to be torn between pulling in and pushing away.

The moment hung in a delicate balance, lips close but seemingly infinitely apart. Each time Hannibal leaned forward, Will would still, his heart jumping into his throat. Every intimate breath Will skimmed over Hannibal’s skin ignited his lonely hunger, burning low in Hannibal. Finally, Will tilted his head close, bridging the distance between their lips, tentative and deliberate. His lips ran smooth against Hannibal’s, sadness in each tug and drag.

Will’s grip tightened, his eyes squeezing shut, and then suddenly their mouths opened, tongues met, hot and pushing. The gurgling rage he’d been brewing in Hannibal’s absence bubbled to the surface, betrayal dragging closely behind. They broke into the exchange, bursting it wide open.  It became barely a kiss in its roughness, crushing anger melting into icy relief. Tears burned in his eyes, lips shoving, teeth biting and dragging.  He pulled each hungry night out of Hannibal, finding Hannibal’s loneliness there, devouring what he could. Responding with his repulsion from Hannibal’s violence. After  a dizzying eternity, Will pulled away, tears burning behind his eyes.

"Don’t ever leave again," he snarled, voice shaking.

 Hannibal knew what he meant, the sorrow in his tone not only a product of the abandonment, but the violence Will believed Hannibal wrought on the ghosts of their past.

“I won't," he promised, hating himself for upsetting their perfect balance, for hurting Will, for nearly loosing what was so precious.  

"I mean it, Hannibal. I can't love like this," his voice broke over the words stored too long in his heart. He knew he’d keep loving, keep following.  Knew he’d welcoming back this merciless killer, knew he’d love until it drove him mad. "Please don't make me."

There was such tired desperation in his words, his heavy eyes trained with bitter pleading on Hannibal. Hannibal’s hands came to hold both sides of his head and he leaned forward, pushing a whisper of lips over Will's.

He paused a beat, and then spoke, love like a rock in his heart. “I spared the kingdom, Will."

Wills eyes flicked up immediately. Hope ballooning slowly in his chest, he took a small step backwards, out of Hannibal’s hands.

“Alana?" he asked, his whisper soft.

“Alive.” Hannibal responded with a nod.

“Molly?”

“Alive. They’re all alive, Will.”

Hannibal watched this knowledge sink in, watched the trust existing so inherent, not finding even the shadow of doubt in Will’s features.

Will took a wet half-laugh, half-gasp.  Cold comfort seeped, a mounting adoration, bleary confusion. Tears now blurring his sight, he look at Hannibal, letting the impossibility wash over him. Alana was alive, Molly was alive.  They were all spared, and Hannibal came back to him. Hannibal came back.

“Everyone?” He asked, a single tear escaping to run a hot trail down his cheek.

 A fondness graced Hannibal’s small smile as he reached up to wipe the tear affectionately.

 "All except Lydia Fell, unfortunately."

Will considered this with pursed lips, sticking both hands in his pocket. He thought of Bedelia, how she spoke of her life with Hannibal behind the veil with both an annoying pride and wavering terror. How she admitted to playing along, to killing her patient, for joining Hannibal’s slaughtering in Florence. He supposed she was as guilty as he was, in loving this beast.

“She was never really part of the kingdom, I supposed.” Will said at last.

When he met Hannibal’s eyes, he smiled back this time, a lightness growing at a nearly intolerable rate.

Hannibal stepped forward, filling the space between them. This time he confidently took what he wanted, harshly reconnecting, feeling his relief float through him, meshing with Will's comfort that pulsing between them. The moment soaked into their skin, down to their bones, cool and fresh and new.  The rejection and acceptance sizzled into compromise and sacrifice, accumulating into this scorching moment of homecoming. Heat danced over Will’s nerve endings as their tongues met and slid, and he reached a hand to hold the base of Hannibal’s jaw. 

Will broke the kiss to rest his forehead against Hannibal, a dusting of tears over his eyelashes. He furrowed his brow in concentration as he retrieved the words he’d memorized, should this impossible moment come.

“In quella parte del libro de la mia memoria... si trova una rubrica la quale dice: Incipit vita nova.”

Hannibal’s lips, bowed in awe, re-caught Will’s in the next moment, his heart so impossibly full it felt ready to burst. Their bodies fitted together perfectly, shared tears brushing against cheek, as they breathed into the kiss, both consumed by a trembling and obedient love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation: “In that book which is my memory...On the first page of the chapter when I met you appears the words: Here begins a new life.” Dante, La Vita Nuova, Chapter I.  
> \----  
> And the last chapter is up! Thank you all SO MUCH for the amount of amazing support and feedback. It really means the world to me, and it's helped me get the chapters posted as fast as I could! This story was my summer project, and a bitch and a half to get finished. But I'm so glad I've gotten to share it with you! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed it <3 
> 
> Also, for more of my writing and Hannigram stuff, you can follow my hannibal sideblog on tumblr, username TheSheepHannibalPet, (URLl: http://thesheephannibalpet.tumblr.com/) 
> 
> Thanks for staying for the whole story!  
> if you liked this, check out my spacedogs slow burn story!


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